Thanks to LastFM for introducing me to The Caressser & his 1938 calypso about the abdication of Edward VIII
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Wild etymology
I was listening to this morning’s episode of Radio 4’s Book of the Week – The Etymologicon, by Mark Forsyth.
This is wonderfully read by Hugh Dennis & right up my street but, like cassava pone, proves that you can have too much of a good thing.
It was during this morning's excursion into how the guinea pig got its name that I suddenly thought: Crikes! I think I’ve eaten guinea pig.
My brain, like so many others full of a heavy cotton wool cold right now, is unable to cope properly with sifting the information conveyed via Google one screen at a time to sort out whether or not this might be true.
Was it agouti or cavy? Or capybara?
But it makes me quite proud to find that, according to Kitchen Daily, I share my confusion with none other than Charles Darwin.
This is wonderfully read by Hugh Dennis & right up my street but, like cassava pone, proves that you can have too much of a good thing.
It was during this morning's excursion into how the guinea pig got its name that I suddenly thought: Crikes! I think I’ve eaten guinea pig.
My brain, like so many others full of a heavy cotton wool cold right now, is unable to cope properly with sifting the information conveyed via Google one screen at a time to sort out whether or not this might be true.
Was it agouti or cavy? Or capybara?
But it makes me quite proud to find that, according to Kitchen Daily, I share my confusion with none other than Charles Darwin.
Charles Darwin and his shipmates, in S. America in the course of their voyage round the world aboard the Beagle, ate agouti, which Darwin described in his journal as ‘the very best meat I ever tasted’. (However, he thought agouti and cavy were interchangeable names, so he may have meant a guinea pig.)
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
No more cutting
Radio 4 recently carried a programme about the decline of consented post mortem in Britain, which is ascribed in part to the scandals at Alder Hey.
According to a recent posting on The Economist Babbage blog however, the problem may be even worse in America, so we may have to look for explanations elsewhere.
Perhaps it is all those grisly serial killer post mortem porn books, tv & films which have put everybody off the idea.
Blame Patricia Cornwell & Val Mc Dermid.
According to a recent posting on The Economist Babbage blog however, the problem may be even worse in America, so we may have to look for explanations elsewhere.
Perhaps it is all those grisly serial killer post mortem porn books, tv & films which have put everybody off the idea.
Blame Patricia Cornwell & Val Mc Dermid.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Dry stone wall woman
Back in October I caught the end of an item on the Today programme which I was sorry to have missed. At long last I have followed the instruction in my notebook to follow it up by Googling ‘dry stone wall woman.’
Now I know what I want for Christmas.
Now I know what I want for Christmas.
Sunday, December 18, 2011
St Lucy
Time for more Donne, this one appropriate for the time of year.
A NOCTURNAL UPON ST. LUCY'S DAY,
BEING THE SHORTEST DAY.
by John Donne
'TIS the year's midnight, and it is the day's,
Lucy's, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks ;
The sun is spent, and now his flasks
Send forth light squibs, no constant rays ;
The world's whole sap is sunk ;
The general balm th' hydroptic earth hath drunk,
Whither, as to the bed's-feet, life is shrunk,
Dead and interr'd ; yet all these seem to laugh,
Compared with me, who am their epitaph.
Study me then, you who shall lovers be
At the next world, that is, at the next spring ;
For I am every dead thing,
In whom Love wrought new alchemy.
For his art did express
A quintessence even from nothingness,
From dull privations, and lean emptiness ;
He ruin'd me, and I am re-begot
Of absence, darkness, death—things which are not.
All others, from all things, draw all that's good,
Life, soul, form, spirit, whence they being have ;
I, by Love's limbec, am the grave
Of all, that's nothing. Oft a flood
Have we two wept, and so
Drown'd the whole world, us two ; oft did we grow,
To be two chaoses, when we did show
Care to aught else ; and often absences
Withdrew our souls, and made us carcasses.
But I am by her death—which word wrongs her—
Of the first nothing the elixir grown ;
Were I a man, that I were one
I needs must know ; I should prefer,
If I were any beast,
Some ends, some means ; yea plants, yea stones detest,
And love ; all, all some properties invest.
If I an ordinary nothing were,
As shadow, a light, and body must be here.
But I am none ; nor will my sun renew.
You lovers, for whose sake the lesser sun
At this time to the Goat is run
To fetch new lust, and give it you,
Enjoy your summer all,
Since she enjoys her long night's festival.
Let me prepare towards her, and let me call
This hour her vigil, and her eve, since this
Both the year's and the day's deep midnight is.
A NOCTURNAL UPON ST. LUCY'S DAY,
BEING THE SHORTEST DAY.
by John Donne
'TIS the year's midnight, and it is the day's,
Lucy's, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks ;
The sun is spent, and now his flasks
Send forth light squibs, no constant rays ;
The world's whole sap is sunk ;
The general balm th' hydroptic earth hath drunk,
Whither, as to the bed's-feet, life is shrunk,
Dead and interr'd ; yet all these seem to laugh,
Compared with me, who am their epitaph.
Study me then, you who shall lovers be
At the next world, that is, at the next spring ;
For I am every dead thing,
In whom Love wrought new alchemy.
For his art did express
A quintessence even from nothingness,
From dull privations, and lean emptiness ;
He ruin'd me, and I am re-begot
Of absence, darkness, death—things which are not.
All others, from all things, draw all that's good,
Life, soul, form, spirit, whence they being have ;
I, by Love's limbec, am the grave
Of all, that's nothing. Oft a flood
Have we two wept, and so
Drown'd the whole world, us two ; oft did we grow,
To be two chaoses, when we did show
Care to aught else ; and often absences
Withdrew our souls, and made us carcasses.
But I am by her death—which word wrongs her—
Of the first nothing the elixir grown ;
Were I a man, that I were one
I needs must know ; I should prefer,
If I were any beast,
Some ends, some means ; yea plants, yea stones detest,
And love ; all, all some properties invest.
If I an ordinary nothing were,
As shadow, a light, and body must be here.
But I am none ; nor will my sun renew.
You lovers, for whose sake the lesser sun
At this time to the Goat is run
To fetch new lust, and give it you,
Enjoy your summer all,
Since she enjoys her long night's festival.
Let me prepare towards her, and let me call
This hour her vigil, and her eve, since this
Both the year's and the day's deep midnight is.
Number objects
Britain is not the only western country concerned about the ability of its population to handle mathematics.
The French are looking to methods devised by an Iranian born woman who believes that the problems are down to the impenetrable language in which mathematics is taught, & insists on children being given a thorough grasp & understanding of the concept of number.
I am somewhat puzzled by the example of the teaching materials which I have seen. For example, in the lesson on ‘4’ children are asked whether that number can be applied to a picture of a table, & to give an explanation for their answer; both yes & no are acceptable, depending on whether that is because there is only one table, or because it has four legs. Similarly either answer is acceptable when asked of a picture of a dog. The four letters m-e-l-l also count as four.
But Yes is not an acceptable answer to the same question about a collection of 4 rubbers, pens & pencils because Mrs Baruk bans pupils from answering ‘four objects’.
The logic escapes me.
The French are looking to methods devised by an Iranian born woman who believes that the problems are down to the impenetrable language in which mathematics is taught, & insists on children being given a thorough grasp & understanding of the concept of number.
I am somewhat puzzled by the example of the teaching materials which I have seen. For example, in the lesson on ‘4’ children are asked whether that number can be applied to a picture of a table, & to give an explanation for their answer; both yes & no are acceptable, depending on whether that is because there is only one table, or because it has four legs. Similarly either answer is acceptable when asked of a picture of a dog. The four letters m-e-l-l also count as four.
But Yes is not an acceptable answer to the same question about a collection of 4 rubbers, pens & pencils because Mrs Baruk bans pupils from answering ‘four objects’.
The logic escapes me.
Links
[PDF] Les maths en kit
Related post
The twoness of two
[PDF] Les maths en kit
Related post
The twoness of two
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Doomy Christmas
Today might be the day that everyone has – finally – gone shopping; the library is remarkably quiet, though perhaps that is just because many people have not yet surfaced from what was supposed to be the biggest office party night of the year last night.
Thursday was a wash out for the shops. There were only six people on the 1 o’clock bus into town – something which hasn’t happened since bus passes went completely free. Coming home, the bus had to linger at timed bus stops at least twice, something else virtually unheard of these days, mostly because increasing congestion & growing numbers of passengers to load mean that buses are rarely running ahead of time.
Perhaps everybody had just decided to stay at home because of the dire warnings about the weather that were issued earlier in the week. Which means that the Met Office undid the good turn that the public sector strikers had done for the shopkeepers at the end of November.
It wouldn’t take very much to put people off & persuade them to hold their purses tight however. Yesterday evening I overheard one woman say to an acquaintance that ‘things are really dire’ in response to a question about her Christmas shopping.
Two new outlets have opened slap in the centre of town – one for Pay Day Loans, one offering to buy your gold.
The Pound Store is the only one which has queues all the time at the till.
And unsold Christmas Specials at bargain prices were piled high just inside the supermarket door last night.
Related posts
Who’d have thought it
Unreliable timetables
Thursday was a wash out for the shops. There were only six people on the 1 o’clock bus into town – something which hasn’t happened since bus passes went completely free. Coming home, the bus had to linger at timed bus stops at least twice, something else virtually unheard of these days, mostly because increasing congestion & growing numbers of passengers to load mean that buses are rarely running ahead of time.
Perhaps everybody had just decided to stay at home because of the dire warnings about the weather that were issued earlier in the week. Which means that the Met Office undid the good turn that the public sector strikers had done for the shopkeepers at the end of November.
It wouldn’t take very much to put people off & persuade them to hold their purses tight however. Yesterday evening I overheard one woman say to an acquaintance that ‘things are really dire’ in response to a question about her Christmas shopping.
Two new outlets have opened slap in the centre of town – one for Pay Day Loans, one offering to buy your gold.
The Pound Store is the only one which has queues all the time at the till.
And unsold Christmas Specials at bargain prices were piled high just inside the supermarket door last night.
Related posts
Who’d have thought it
Unreliable timetables
Friday, December 16, 2011
Star bosons
William Waldegrave wrote a column in Wednesday’s Times in which he reminisced about the day he issued a challenge to physicists to provide him with an explanation of the Higgs Boson which would fit on one side of a sheet of A4 paper.
One fact new to me was that he had promised a bottle of vintage champagne to the winner, & in the event found himself having to fork out for five bottles when the panel of eminent physicists, who judged the entries, decided that that number were equally outstanding.
Waldegrave regarded as ‘the most fun’ the explanation which used the analogy of the effect a certain female prime minister would have when she entered a crowded room, gaining mass as others gathered round her.
Not so very coincidentally, at about the same time as The Times was hitting the streets or the ether, Radio 5 Live’s Up All Night was talking to a physicist in America about the latest news from CERN. Asked if he could provide a simple explanation of the Higgs Boson the physicist said there was one – regretfully he was unable to say who had first come up with it – which clearly impressed presenter Giles Dilnot mightily.
It was of course the same as William Waldegrave’s ‘fun’ version, except that in the American adaptation the person capable of having such an effect is a female rock star.
Which reminded me in turn of a studio discussion I heard some years ago – also probably on 5 Live. The subject was Hugh Grant, then going through one of his less than happy periods.
Somebody stuck up for him: Whatever you think, he is one of those special people – when he’s in the room everybody else wants to be near him, they all move in his direction.
I wondered if, subconsciously at least, the speaker was thinking of particle physics as they said that?
One fact new to me was that he had promised a bottle of vintage champagne to the winner, & in the event found himself having to fork out for five bottles when the panel of eminent physicists, who judged the entries, decided that that number were equally outstanding.
Waldegrave regarded as ‘the most fun’ the explanation which used the analogy of the effect a certain female prime minister would have when she entered a crowded room, gaining mass as others gathered round her.
Not so very coincidentally, at about the same time as The Times was hitting the streets or the ether, Radio 5 Live’s Up All Night was talking to a physicist in America about the latest news from CERN. Asked if he could provide a simple explanation of the Higgs Boson the physicist said there was one – regretfully he was unable to say who had first come up with it – which clearly impressed presenter Giles Dilnot mightily.
It was of course the same as William Waldegrave’s ‘fun’ version, except that in the American adaptation the person capable of having such an effect is a female rock star.
Which reminded me in turn of a studio discussion I heard some years ago – also probably on 5 Live. The subject was Hugh Grant, then going through one of his less than happy periods.
Somebody stuck up for him: Whatever you think, he is one of those special people – when he’s in the room everybody else wants to be near him, they all move in his direction.
I wondered if, subconsciously at least, the speaker was thinking of particle physics as they said that?
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Met Office Matilda
So what happened to this 20-year storm which was supposed to hit us today?
Newspaper meteorologists, the Met Office & climate change believers are way too fond of putting the wind up us.
Some of us have spent the days since Sunday in a state of very real anxiety.
When it doesn’t happen we just get cross & stop believing anything they tell us
Extract from Met Office forecast for today:
Newspaper meteorologists, the Met Office & climate change believers are way too fond of putting the wind up us.
Some of us have spent the days since Sunday in a state of very real anxiety.
When it doesn’t happen we just get cross & stop believing anything they tell us
Extract from Met Office forecast for today:
15 December 2011: dawn to dusk
Peak District mountain area forecast
Forecast issued: 0523 on Thursday, 15 December 2011
Overview for Thursday
Wintry showers early and late but some dry, bright weather in between. Lighter winds than recently but still a chilling breeze, especially later.
No risk of Blizzards; Storm force winds; Gales; Thunderstorms; Heavy persistent rain; Strong sunlight;
A cloudy start to the day, with showers, falling as snow above about 200 to 300m, but becoming mainly dry mid to late morning, with some bright or sunny intervals developing, before further cloud and showers arrive towards dusk, again wintry over the tops. Light winds at first but increasing somewhat later.
Maximum winds above 400m: Westerly to southwesterly 25 to 30mph during the afternoon.
Seeing the pattern
In 2009 James Crook, emeritus professor of mathematics from South Dakota, published on the website of the American Mathematical Society a formula for solving every Su Doku grid. It runs to 9 pages & involves concepts & techniques such as pre-emptive sets, completion chromatic polynomials & hidden tuples.
Spoil sport.
When Su Doku first hit The Times in 2004 I thought: How boring – no laughs there, unlike the cryptic crossword.
But when I could no longer see to do the crossword on the bus going home I tried the numbers thing – larger print, more white space & greater contrast; easier to read in the dim light.
It was OK, but I thought it might be more interesting to look at the mathematics of it – simple permutations or combinations of a mere 9 digits – even though I used to hate all those problems in Feller about the probability of husbands & wives sitting next to each other at dinner.
I soon gave up on that idea – no wonder really in the light of the illumination provided by Professor Crook.
I did however persevere with the puzzles & a strange thing happened – I found it much easier to do those at the higher levels of difficulty as these were introduced. In fact I sometimes find Super Fiendish laughably easy, & certainly less tedious than the Easy ones.
This must in part be a simple case of practice & familiarity, of knowing what to expect &, perhaps subconsciously, remembering techniques & tricks which have worked on earlier occasions.
The techniques are tremendously difficult to describe in words – as the introductory explanations & instructions provided in some of the books of collected puzzles show only too well. I can only describe the method as ‘seeing the pattern.’
There are physical factors which make it much easier for me to successfully complete one of these problems – notably lots of white space around the puzzle & smooth paper which does not get scuffed up by the eraser; I especially like those books with a spiral binding which you can open out flat, a single puzzle per page of smooth white paper. I do not like a grid much larger than the size normally adopted by newspapers.
I also find it essential to use a Paper Mate non-stop 0.7mm HB pencil.
I never enter possible alternatives in an empty square, except occasionally just two – never (like at least one previous winner of The Times National Championship) all possible candidates, to be eliminated & erased one by one - & is essentially Professor Crook’s method.
I find it much harder to complete puzzles where the numbers already inserted form a zig zag pattern; the first step on the way to a solution is to fill in the cells which will straighten up the layout. The pattern is at least as important as the individual numbers – something which was made startlingly clear in a post by David Speigelhalter on Randomness in Art: he asked us to spot the fake piece of random art from a set of 4 Su Dokus-type grids with colours rather than numbers – in that case it was the pattern formed by squares coloured in a particular shade of acid green which immediately gave the game away.
All this solipsism has a wider point. Ultimately we, each of us, have only our own experience & reflective cogitation to go on, even if we have the resources & ability to design & conduct psychological or neurological experiments on a wide variety of ‘subjects’ under laboratory conditions.
The older I get, the more faculties begin to fade, the more we hear how brain scans show up ‘real’ differences between the way different brains perceive or respond to the world, the more I realise that the old idea, that the world simply IS, with ‘I’ its flawed observer & interpreter, is not true.
Each one of us inhabits a different world, one described & limited by our own perceptive abilities – mine are different from yours; that world out there is different.
We overlap enough however. Like a kind of multi-dimensional stereo vision bringing the parts together to make a whole.
The world is a kaleidoscope.
And Su Doku is only a pastime.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Talking about music
I don’t know if Desert Island Discs was, in 1942, the original radio programme where an interview is disguised as a discussion of the guest’s favourite music - that friendly format which allows the interviewee to show off, sometimes unashamedly & without challenge, its genius in making them choose the only eight records they could listen to, possibly for the rest of their life – we all like to play that game.
Private Passions has been going on Radio 3 for a mere 15 years. There is more musicology in the interplay between Michael Berkeley & his guests (who do not necessarily have any musical training) & the format produces some interesting exchanges about how music produces its effects on non- experts who nevertheless have an ‘ear.’ I am intrigued to learn from the website that the programme is recorded in Michael Berkeley’s own London home. The musical choices are played at greater length – whole tracks, if not actually whole works.
Classic FM has the Classic FM Interview on Saturday evenings where the bonhomous Nick Ferrari talks to ‘some of today’s best known personalities’ about their lives & favourite pieces of classical music.
Now Radio 3’s weekday mid-morning Essential Classics adopts the same format between 10.30 and 11, with the same guest stripped across the week. One newspaper reviewer finds this a bit too much – said that by the end of the week the interviewee seemed like a house guest who had outstayed their welcome.
I had a different concern – trying to work out if the item goes out live every day, with the guest having to trek to the studio, or whether the chat is recorded all in one go & the programme put together later.
Certainly some of the earlier guests sounded surprised by the interviewer’s Hello! on Tuesday , Wednesday …, but recently it has sounded less forced. Since 5 mornings for a whole week would be quite some undertaking for a guest with plenty of other commitments I suspect it must be pre-recorded (by the same company which produces Private Passions) & not necessarily in the studio at all.
The website says gnomically that “Their choices are spread across the week’s programmes.”
I recently heard a trail on RTÉ Radio 1 for a programme with what sounds like a very similar format, but unfortunately on one of their FM or digital stations which cannot be picked up over here by old-fashioned steam radio.
Private Passions has been going on Radio 3 for a mere 15 years. There is more musicology in the interplay between Michael Berkeley & his guests (who do not necessarily have any musical training) & the format produces some interesting exchanges about how music produces its effects on non- experts who nevertheless have an ‘ear.’ I am intrigued to learn from the website that the programme is recorded in Michael Berkeley’s own London home. The musical choices are played at greater length – whole tracks, if not actually whole works.
Classic FM has the Classic FM Interview on Saturday evenings where the bonhomous Nick Ferrari talks to ‘some of today’s best known personalities’ about their lives & favourite pieces of classical music.
Now Radio 3’s weekday mid-morning Essential Classics adopts the same format between 10.30 and 11, with the same guest stripped across the week. One newspaper reviewer finds this a bit too much – said that by the end of the week the interviewee seemed like a house guest who had outstayed their welcome.
I had a different concern – trying to work out if the item goes out live every day, with the guest having to trek to the studio, or whether the chat is recorded all in one go & the programme put together later.
Certainly some of the earlier guests sounded surprised by the interviewer’s Hello! on Tuesday , Wednesday …, but recently it has sounded less forced. Since 5 mornings for a whole week would be quite some undertaking for a guest with plenty of other commitments I suspect it must be pre-recorded (by the same company which produces Private Passions) & not necessarily in the studio at all.
The website says gnomically that “Their choices are spread across the week’s programmes.”
I recently heard a trail on RTÉ Radio 1 for a programme with what sounds like a very similar format, but unfortunately on one of their FM or digital stations which cannot be picked up over here by old-fashioned steam radio.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Making the best use of our time
This time it was BBC radio which managed to disorient me in the late night/small hours of the morning.
At about the time I have still not got used to not hearing Bridget Kendall’s Forum, up popped Melvyn Bragg & guests, discussing Shinto.
Have they moved In Our Time onto the World Service?
Not exactly.
Just thriftiness in the face of BBC budget cuts perhaps.
An edition of In Our Time broadcast on Radio 4 on 22 September 2011 was being broadcast as part of a series called Heart & Soul on World Service.
Bridget Kendall’s Forum has been moved to the early hours of Saturday/Sunday night.
At about the time I have still not got used to not hearing Bridget Kendall’s Forum, up popped Melvyn Bragg & guests, discussing Shinto.
Have they moved In Our Time onto the World Service?
Not exactly.
Just thriftiness in the face of BBC budget cuts perhaps.
An edition of In Our Time broadcast on Radio 4 on 22 September 2011 was being broadcast as part of a series called Heart & Soul on World Service.
Bridget Kendall’s Forum has been moved to the early hours of Saturday/Sunday night.
Related post
Mal de mer
Mal de mer
Cedric & Sid
Tell Sid, the advertising slogan for sales of shares in the newly privatised British Gas, was a Treasury in-joke.
‘Sid’ was Sidney Webb, one of the earliest members of the Fabian Society (& founder of LSE), who wrote the original Clause IV for the Labour Party which called for the nationalisation of the gas & water industries.Ian King Times Business Diary 22 November 2011
It is also either ironic or salutary to remember the fuss that was made about the pay of Cedric Brown when he got a 75% pay rise as Chief Executive of the by then privatised British Gas. I was always convinced that his name*, nowadays considered old fashioned & effeminate, only added to the contempt in which he was held during that media storm & fit of morality.
If only we had known how much more inflation there would be in the pay of senior managers.
* According to Wikipedia Cedric is a male given name invented by Walter Scott in the 1819 novel Ivanhoe, possibly misread for Cerdic, the name of a Saxon king, anglicized from Welsh caredig (‘beloved’).
Monday, December 12, 2011
Eight thousand bucks
More evidence of what can happen when something is lurking at the front of your mind.
On BBC Radio 2 on Sunday night Russell Davies played a comedy song about a young man chasing girls.
The first verse ends with the line '$8000 bucks down the drain.'
Except that, because of the recent media preoccupation with when it may be permissible to swear in public, my mind completely misheard an F where there should be a B.
Of course it could not be an F - not on the BBC, not on Sunday evening.
Just to be sure, I checked the programme schedule on the website.
I wanted to get
Some new girlfriends,
So I went and bought
A Mercedes Benz.
A waste of money!
Eight thousand bucks down the drain.
On BBC Radio 2 on Sunday night Russell Davies played a comedy song about a young man chasing girls.
The first verse ends with the line '$8000 bucks down the drain.'
Except that, because of the recent media preoccupation with when it may be permissible to swear in public, my mind completely misheard an F where there should be a B.
Of course it could not be an F - not on the BBC, not on Sunday evening.
Just to be sure, I checked the programme schedule on the website.
I wanted to get
Some new girlfriends,
So I went and bought
A Mercedes Benz.
A waste of money!
Eight thousand bucks down the drain.
Alan Sherman: A waste of money
Links
Russell Davies 11 December 2011
Related post
Evidence based law
Russell Davies 11 December 2011
Related post
Evidence based law
Recorde of statistics
Richard Hamblyn’s collection, The Art of Science: A Natural History of Ideas, introduced me to this wonderfully spirited paean to Arithmetick, extracted from Robert Recorde’s The Grounde of Artes, Teachying the Worke & Practise of Arithmetike, much necessary for all States of Men, which was published in 1543 during the reign of Henry VIII.
Britain is (finally?) to develop a cutting edge workforce in everything from medicine & science to car manufacturing & digital technologies with the aid of a dozen maths colleges for 16 to 18 year olds, one in each major city in England (Which they? Surely London needs more than one?) Since we do not have enough maths teachers in schools they will be linked to universities & will be totally free in matters of pupil selection & curriculum.
We need them to ‘help make England an intellectual, cultural & economic leader in a field vital for our future’ said one official.
They will all be up & running by the time of the next election.
Fact: # of maths lessons currently taught by non-maths specialists??
Doctors gather so great mysteries out of number & so much do write of it. And if I should go about to write of all the commodities of Arithmetick in civil acts, as in governance of Common-weales in times of peace, & in due provision & order of Armies, in time of war, for numbering the Host, summing of their wages, provision of victuals, viewing of Artillery, with other Armour; beside the cunningest point of all, for casting of ground, for encamping of men, with such other like: And how many ways also Arithmetick is conducible for all private Weales, of Lords & all Possessioners, of Merchants, & all other occupiers, & generally for all estates of men, besides Auditors, Treasurers, Receivers, Stewards, Bailiffs, & such like, whose Offices without Arithmetick are nothing: if I should particularly repeat all such commodities of the noble Science of Arithmetick, it were enough to make a very great book.Robert Recorde c1510-58
Britain is (finally?) to develop a cutting edge workforce in everything from medicine & science to car manufacturing & digital technologies with the aid of a dozen maths colleges for 16 to 18 year olds, one in each major city in England (Which they? Surely London needs more than one?) Since we do not have enough maths teachers in schools they will be linked to universities & will be totally free in matters of pupil selection & curriculum.
We need them to ‘help make England an intellectual, cultural & economic leader in a field vital for our future’ said one official.
They will all be up & running by the time of the next election.
Fact: # of maths lessons currently taught by non-maths specialists??
Links
Robert Recorde biography
Robert Recorde of Tenby
The Robert Recorde Memorial
Richard Hamblyn
The Art of Science: A Natural History of Ideas
Give and take on schools funding
Autumn Statement: Maths schools
Mathematics and Computing College
[PDF] Autumn Statement
Related posts
The first statistics of happiness
The politics of large numbers
Robert Recorde biography
Robert Recorde of Tenby
The Robert Recorde Memorial
Richard Hamblyn
The Art of Science: A Natural History of Ideas
Give and take on schools funding
Autumn Statement: Maths schools
Mathematics and Computing College
[PDF] Autumn Statement
Related posts
The first statistics of happiness
The politics of large numbers
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Construction statistics
I have belatedly become aware of the Statement of the UK Statistics Authority on the error in the estimates of Construction Output which were released to the press last August.
Oh dear, oh dear.
This is a short story which tells (rather elliptically), of yet another part of the civil service experiencing problems of management & morale – problems that have been afflicting much of the civil service for some time.
A simple clerical mistake in a spreadsheet formula (which apparently needs to be updated for each new quarter) was not spotted in time.
The report tells a story of staff under a great deal of pressure, following changes in responsibilities, extra work making revisions to previous series, & outdated computer technology. Reorganisations & budget cuts have clearly played their part.
But, even more alarmingly, the report suggests that all this ‘raises a question about the role of senior managers … managers may have to accept less freedom to define their own roles on the basis of their personal understanding of what is needed and the prevailing culture of the office.’
Whatever is meant by ‘senior management’ in this context, the comment suggests a disturbing lack of grip & sense of collegiate responsibility at the highest levels.
Oh dear, oh dear.
This is a short story which tells (rather elliptically), of yet another part of the civil service experiencing problems of management & morale – problems that have been afflicting much of the civil service for some time.
A simple clerical mistake in a spreadsheet formula (which apparently needs to be updated for each new quarter) was not spotted in time.
The report tells a story of staff under a great deal of pressure, following changes in responsibilities, extra work making revisions to previous series, & outdated computer technology. Reorganisations & budget cuts have clearly played their part.
But, even more alarmingly, the report suggests that all this ‘raises a question about the role of senior managers … managers may have to accept less freedom to define their own roles on the basis of their personal understanding of what is needed and the prevailing culture of the office.’
Whatever is meant by ‘senior management’ in this context, the comment suggests a disturbing lack of grip & sense of collegiate responsibility at the highest levels.
Strange sights
This is another heart wrenchng poem about love & old age from Thomas Hardy
She Saw Him, She Said
“Why, I saw you with the sexton, outside the church-door,
So I did not hurry me home,
Thinking you'd not be come,
Having something to him to say.—
Yes: 'twas you, Dear, though you seemed sad, heart-sore;
How fast you've got therefrom!”
“I've not been out. I've watched the moon through the birch,
And heard the bell toll. Yes,
Like a passing soul in distress!”
“—But no bell's tolled to-day?” . . .
His face looked strange, like the face of him seen by the church,
And she sank to musefulness.
She Saw Him, She Said
“Why, I saw you with the sexton, outside the church-door,
So I did not hurry me home,
Thinking you'd not be come,
Having something to him to say.—
Yes: 'twas you, Dear, though you seemed sad, heart-sore;
How fast you've got therefrom!”
“I've not been out. I've watched the moon through the birch,
And heard the bell toll. Yes,
Like a passing soul in distress!”
“—But no bell's tolled to-day?” . . .
His face looked strange, like the face of him seen by the church,
And she sank to musefulness.
Pronouncing Calcutta
It was only with the reports of the appalling fire in Calcutta that I noticed that BBC radio news readers were pronouncing the name of the city as if it were spelled more like Culcutta.
The information on the web does not make it clear when this change was adopted – one site suggests 2001. Did I fail to notice because Calcutta does not often make it on to the domestic news bulletins?
The official variant adopted by the current BBC news website is actually spelled Kolkata, just to add to the confusion.
The information on the web does not make it clear when this change was adopted – one site suggests 2001. Did I fail to notice because Calcutta does not often make it on to the domestic news bulletins?
The official variant adopted by the current BBC news website is actually spelled Kolkata, just to add to the confusion.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
The politics of economic integration
My gut instinct is that David Cameron was right to refuse to sign up to the latest woolly European proposals which could lead to heaven knows what. Signing up to yet more ‘Europe’ would probably have led to a political explosion at home, & one not led by,(contrary to what they like to think) gleeful told-you-so Euro sceptics.
It is unfortunate that Cameron should have done this to protect our so-called financial services ‘industry’, whose apparent size & importance is in large part an illusion & delusion, based on the continuing debt-fuelled inflation in asset prices.
Politics right, economics wrong.
It is unfortunate that Cameron should have done this to protect our so-called financial services ‘industry’, whose apparent size & importance is in large part an illusion & delusion, based on the continuing debt-fuelled inflation in asset prices.
Politics right, economics wrong.
A different kind of snow
It seemed that we had escaped the worst of the winter storms which were battering much of northern Britain last week. We had heavy squally showers, intermittent high (but not gale force) winds, & no snow to speak of.
Friday morning’s local weather forecast foretold of showers, possibly falling as snow on the highest ground but dying out during the afternoon, with little wind. A cold night though, with temperatures dropping below freezing.
We were in for an unpleasant surprise.
Just before I left home the presenter on local radio warned of ice on the road the bus takes, but five miles further up. Take care, he said, cars are sliding all over the place.
Getting up the hill was more of a challenge than I had expected – the latest shower had been of that wet sleety stuff, which was still lying on the surface. For once I was happy to think that the bus might be a little late.
By the time I reached the road the sky had turned black & heavy sleet was falling again. I stood in the bus shelter reviewing my options for when it stopped; on the whole best to go & do the planned shopping, or else the Christmas timetable will be out of kilter, but then come straight home. Traffic was still moving (some much too fast for the conditions), the sky was brightening, even showing some patches of blue, a shaft of sunlight silvering the bottoms of some of the clouds.
But no bus came.
The major problem seems to have been in Buxton. Though high up (1000 ft above sea level) the town centre lies in a bowl – if you want to get out the only way is up, & in such slippery conditions it is all too easy to slip & slide or, if you are very big & heavy, to gain the necessary traction. So everything grinds too easily to a halt.
There was also mention of one road being closed by the construction of the new Nestle pipeline, but that may just be locals too ready to blame everyhting on a controversial issue.
Friday morning’s local weather forecast foretold of showers, possibly falling as snow on the highest ground but dying out during the afternoon, with little wind. A cold night though, with temperatures dropping below freezing.
We were in for an unpleasant surprise.
Just before I left home the presenter on local radio warned of ice on the road the bus takes, but five miles further up. Take care, he said, cars are sliding all over the place.
Getting up the hill was more of a challenge than I had expected – the latest shower had been of that wet sleety stuff, which was still lying on the surface. For once I was happy to think that the bus might be a little late.
By the time I reached the road the sky had turned black & heavy sleet was falling again. I stood in the bus shelter reviewing my options for when it stopped; on the whole best to go & do the planned shopping, or else the Christmas timetable will be out of kilter, but then come straight home. Traffic was still moving (some much too fast for the conditions), the sky was brightening, even showing some patches of blue, a shaft of sunlight silvering the bottoms of some of the clouds.
But no bus came.
The major problem seems to have been in Buxton. Though high up (1000 ft above sea level) the town centre lies in a bowl – if you want to get out the only way is up, & in such slippery conditions it is all too easy to slip & slide or, if you are very big & heavy, to gain the necessary traction. So everything grinds too easily to a halt.
There was also mention of one road being closed by the construction of the new Nestle pipeline, but that may just be locals too ready to blame everyhting on a controversial issue.
Thursday, December 08, 2011
Water
After a long planning battle, Nestle is investing £35 million in a new bottling plant for Buxton water which will more than double the current capacity of 330 million bottles a year.
Increased demand has seen sales rise nearly 10% since 2007.
New technology will mean lighter bottles which use 25% less plastic.
There will be no significant increase in the number of jobs (currently 100). There will however be 300 new Nestle jobs in the south of the county, making posh coffee.
UK consumers drank over 2 billion litres of bottled water in 2010 – this is expected to rise to 2.3 billion by 2015 as mothers are expected to opt for water rather than sugary drinks for their children.
Nestle also owns Perrier, San Pellegrino & Vittel.
Buxton water is produced from 5,000 year old rainfall that has been forced up through 1,500 metres of bedrock before emerging at St Ann’s spring. It is possible to take your own bottles & fill them up for free at the Well in the centre of town – though you may have to join a long queue.
The taste of the bottled variety always puzzles me; I drank water from the well only once I think, when I was very young. It tasted sulphurous, but the grown ups said that meant it was doing you good.
There was also a petrifying well at Matlock so I think I was afraid I might be turned to stone if I ever drank well water again.
I liked the well dressing though
Increased demand has seen sales rise nearly 10% since 2007.
New technology will mean lighter bottles which use 25% less plastic.
There will be no significant increase in the number of jobs (currently 100). There will however be 300 new Nestle jobs in the south of the county, making posh coffee.
UK consumers drank over 2 billion litres of bottled water in 2010 – this is expected to rise to 2.3 billion by 2015 as mothers are expected to opt for water rather than sugary drinks for their children.
Nestle also owns Perrier, San Pellegrino & Vittel.
Buxton water is produced from 5,000 year old rainfall that has been forced up through 1,500 metres of bedrock before emerging at St Ann’s spring. It is possible to take your own bottles & fill them up for free at the Well in the centre of town – though you may have to join a long queue.
The taste of the bottled variety always puzzles me; I drank water from the well only once I think, when I was very young. It tasted sulphurous, but the grown ups said that meant it was doing you good.
There was also a petrifying well at Matlock so I think I was afraid I might be turned to stone if I ever drank well water again.
I liked the well dressing though
Noteworthy but unmomentous coincidence
I got one of those slightly spooky feelings when checking the radio listings yesterday evening to see if there was anything not to be missed.
The Radio 3 Essay at 10.45, the theme this week ‘Personal reflections on different aspects of the life, work and influence of WG Sebald.’ The translator’s view, to be given by – Andrea Bell. On the very day I had written my blog note.
Of course nothing really spooky, statistically significant, or even interesting to anyone but me, about that small co-incidence in time.
I may well have heard the name of such a distinguished translator, read of, even read, her work long before now, without the name lodging in the memory bank until I read that comment in the Bellos book.
When things do suddenly lodge in the front part of your brain you are often amazed to find how ubiquitous they are – indeed this is far from being the first time that Anthea Bell’s work has appeared on Radio 3.
Such small coincidences happen all the time. The really interesting question is why do a very few sometimes spark a new hypothesis, a really Big Idea.
The Radio 3 Essay at 10.45, the theme this week ‘Personal reflections on different aspects of the life, work and influence of WG Sebald.’ The translator’s view, to be given by – Andrea Bell. On the very day I had written my blog note.
Of course nothing really spooky, statistically significant, or even interesting to anyone but me, about that small co-incidence in time.
I may well have heard the name of such a distinguished translator, read of, even read, her work long before now, without the name lodging in the memory bank until I read that comment in the Bellos book.
When things do suddenly lodge in the front part of your brain you are often amazed to find how ubiquitous they are – indeed this is far from being the first time that Anthea Bell’s work has appeared on Radio 3.
Such small coincidences happen all the time. The really interesting question is why do a very few sometimes spark a new hypothesis, a really Big Idea.
Wednesday, December 07, 2011
Yes - again
I forgot to note that we had another power cut last Tuesday – this one during the afternoon or early evening while I was out of the house.
In fact it took me a few moments to realise that the radio was making a funny noise, not because I had pressed the wrong button but because the whole thing needed to be reset.
The winds were high & blustery again all day, just like they were when we had the previous cut.
A trying day all round really. A group of three teenage girls arrived at the bus stop, very overexcited, very noisy, talking at the tops of their voices, screaming with laughter. They broke into a dance routine to You’re The One That I Want, threatening once or twice to knock me over (not meaning to).
The f-word was used more than once. I fell to pondering what might be the reaction if I rang the police to complain that I was thereby feeling harassed & distressed though not, in truth, really alarmed.
Precisely.
In fact it took me a few moments to realise that the radio was making a funny noise, not because I had pressed the wrong button but because the whole thing needed to be reset.
The winds were high & blustery again all day, just like they were when we had the previous cut.
A trying day all round really. A group of three teenage girls arrived at the bus stop, very overexcited, very noisy, talking at the tops of their voices, screaming with laughter. They broke into a dance routine to You’re The One That I Want, threatening once or twice to knock me over (not meaning to).
The f-word was used more than once. I fell to pondering what might be the reaction if I rang the police to complain that I was thereby feeling harassed & distressed though not, in truth, really alarmed.
Precisely.
Related posts
Evidence based law
Same old, same old
Evidence based law
Same old, same old
A family of words
'How has Anthea Bell made Asterix even funnier in English than in French?' asked David Bellos in his book about translation, Is That A Fish In Your Ear? Praise indeed. I wanted to know more.
Anthea Bell is the daughter of Adrian Bell, the first cryptic crossword setter for The Times, who was described in an article to celebrate the publication of the 25,000th such crossword as ‘a farmer who wrote with a quill pen.’ Oliver Kamm, The Times current resident pedant, is Anthea Bell's son.
Adrian Bell was also the father of BBC journalist Martin Bell who won a famous victory as independent MP for Tatton in the wake of the cash for questions scandal & was himself featured in Radio 4's Archive on 4 on Saturday, which looked at the subject of reporters who cross the line, with special reference to Bell’s reporting from Bosnia.
Is a facility with, & deep interest in, language & words due to nature or nurture, one wonders.
That Times article I referred to also told us that Adrian Bell remains the most prolific setter in the newspaper’s history with 5,000 puzzles to his name.
I wonder if the man who was recently described, by the current crossword editor, in an article about the recent national competition as his best current setter, will match Bell’s record. He it is, I think, who is changing the nature of crossword clues to make them encrypted rather than cryptic.
Tatton is now the constituency of George Osborn, our besieged Chancellor of the Exchequer, who may have to look for a new seat because of his government’s own boundary change.
Anthea Bell is the daughter of Adrian Bell, the first cryptic crossword setter for The Times, who was described in an article to celebrate the publication of the 25,000th such crossword as ‘a farmer who wrote with a quill pen.’ Oliver Kamm, The Times current resident pedant, is Anthea Bell's son.
Adrian Bell was also the father of BBC journalist Martin Bell who won a famous victory as independent MP for Tatton in the wake of the cash for questions scandal & was himself featured in Radio 4's Archive on 4 on Saturday, which looked at the subject of reporters who cross the line, with special reference to Bell’s reporting from Bosnia.
Is a facility with, & deep interest in, language & words due to nature or nurture, one wonders.
That Times article I referred to also told us that Adrian Bell remains the most prolific setter in the newspaper’s history with 5,000 puzzles to his name.
I wonder if the man who was recently described, by the current crossword editor, in an article about the recent national competition as his best current setter, will match Bell’s record. He it is, I think, who is changing the nature of crossword clues to make them encrypted rather than cryptic.
Tatton is now the constituency of George Osborn, our besieged Chancellor of the Exchequer, who may have to look for a new seat because of his government’s own boundary change.
Links
Making Asterix funny in English
INTERVIEW: Anthea Bell, Part 1
Obituary: Antony Kamm, publisher, author, historian and cricketer
The Times Crossword Championship Unofficial information
Archive on 4 When Reporters Cross the Line
George Osborne MP for Tatton
Boundary review could see end of Tatton constituency
Related posts
A part of the whole
Onety-one
Hand to mouth intelligence
The Thunderer on the pull
Making Asterix funny in English
INTERVIEW: Anthea Bell, Part 1
Obituary: Antony Kamm, publisher, author, historian and cricketer
The Times Crossword Championship Unofficial information
Archive on 4 When Reporters Cross the Line
George Osborne MP for Tatton
Boundary review could see end of Tatton constituency
Related posts
A part of the whole
Onety-one
Hand to mouth intelligence
The Thunderer on the pull
Tuesday, December 06, 2011
Winter
Winter arrived yesterday. The high roads were closed or passable only with care. One was blocked by a gritter wagon which got stuck.
We didn’t have such problems down below, just dark skies in the middle of the morning & lots of blustery squally showers, some of which counted as hail, though fortunately just the sleety slush puppy kind, not the pelting frozen marbles that really sting the skin, create a terrible noise on the roof of the bus or make you fear for the glass roof of your conservatory.
This morning the radio told me that things were bad in Buxton, but things seemed much better at home. By the time I came out it was cold but the ground was clear of all signs of ice or snow, though it was very cold & the stream was in near full spate. But I got a shock up the hill – ice & snow still on the pavement.
Still the bus arrived on time; the driver told me that, although he was on time, the bus itself was the one that should have arrived an hour earlier.
We didn’t have such problems down below, just dark skies in the middle of the morning & lots of blustery squally showers, some of which counted as hail, though fortunately just the sleety slush puppy kind, not the pelting frozen marbles that really sting the skin, create a terrible noise on the roof of the bus or make you fear for the glass roof of your conservatory.
This morning the radio told me that things were bad in Buxton, but things seemed much better at home. By the time I came out it was cold but the ground was clear of all signs of ice or snow, though it was very cold & the stream was in near full spate. But I got a shock up the hill – ice & snow still on the pavement.
Still the bus arrived on time; the driver told me that, although he was on time, the bus itself was the one that should have arrived an hour earlier.
John McCarthy
It is, I suppose, inevitable that 2011 should have seen the deaths of so many pioneers of computers & computing, since many would have been young men in the 1940s & 1950s. None of these has been met with the global outpouring of grief which we saw at the death of Steve Jobs.
One such was John McCarthy, who died on October 24. He invented the LISP programming language & is credited with coining the term Artificial Intelligence in 1955. He is said sometimes to have regretted not having come up instead with the term Computational Intelligence since AI came to be mixed up with the notion of making robots with human emotions – an idea which McCarthy rejected on the grounds that to simulate emotional behaviour is not at all the same thing as to experience it.
He also helped develop time-sharing, in the days when, rather than a kind of holiday home, the term referred to a way of making it possible for many users to have remote access to the same computer at the same time. Eventually this allowed users access via a phone line & a teletype machine &, with the development of satellite communications, regardless of the distance between them. For people of my generation this was every bit as exciting as the later developments of Apple & i; since few organisations could afford their own multimillion pound machine, pay-as you-go was our only hope of access.
But the benefits were considerable even if the machine was local. No longer did you have to write out your programs laboriously by hand on specially designed pads of green & white paper, deliver them to an office where someone had the equipment to transcribe them into a format which the computer could understand, then wait for a week to see if your program had worked. Now you could just type it in directly yourself & get the result straight away, printed out at the astonishing speed of 10 characters per second.
The Times obituarist described him as a rational humanist, optimistic about the role of science & technology in sustainable human development, an advocate of nuclear power as an alternative to fossil fuels, dismissive of the ‘superstitious’ belief in the benefits of organic food, despairing of media headlines about health & scientific research, & sceptical about the scale of the threat from global warming.
Sounds like a man I wish I had known.
One such was John McCarthy, who died on October 24. He invented the LISP programming language & is credited with coining the term Artificial Intelligence in 1955. He is said sometimes to have regretted not having come up instead with the term Computational Intelligence since AI came to be mixed up with the notion of making robots with human emotions – an idea which McCarthy rejected on the grounds that to simulate emotional behaviour is not at all the same thing as to experience it.
He also helped develop time-sharing, in the days when, rather than a kind of holiday home, the term referred to a way of making it possible for many users to have remote access to the same computer at the same time. Eventually this allowed users access via a phone line & a teletype machine &, with the development of satellite communications, regardless of the distance between them. For people of my generation this was every bit as exciting as the later developments of Apple & i; since few organisations could afford their own multimillion pound machine, pay-as you-go was our only hope of access.
But the benefits were considerable even if the machine was local. No longer did you have to write out your programs laboriously by hand on specially designed pads of green & white paper, deliver them to an office where someone had the equipment to transcribe them into a format which the computer could understand, then wait for a week to see if your program had worked. Now you could just type it in directly yourself & get the result straight away, printed out at the astonishing speed of 10 characters per second.
The Times obituarist described him as a rational humanist, optimistic about the role of science & technology in sustainable human development, an advocate of nuclear power as an alternative to fossil fuels, dismissive of the ‘superstitious’ belief in the benefits of organic food, despairing of media headlines about health & scientific research, & sceptical about the scale of the threat from global warming.
Sounds like a man I wish I had known.
Monday, December 05, 2011
Apples
As you grow old strength ebbs & even eating can start to become a bit of a trial, in subtle ways, long before you reach the stage of needing to be spoon fed like a baby.
Chewing becomes a chore, made worse if hand problems make it trickier to use a knife to cut things into bite size pieces.
Simple pleasures aren’t always so simple anymore.
Take apples. Maybe the idea of holding one in your hand while you take a bite through the skin & savour the wonderful scent & feel the juices run – well maybe best just leave it as a memory. Of course you can always cut it into slices, peel off that tricky skin – using a fruit knife was always the politely genteel way of eating an apple at table.
And you can still make apple sauce, apple pie, apple crumble, Eve’s pudding … Or buy a dish ready made.
On Saturday I had what I don’t suppose is an original idea, when the weather turned so cold, wet & blustery as to make the idea of crunching through crispy juicy apples for dessert less attractive than it had earlier seemed, but nor did I want to faff about cooking a pudding.
The brainwave was to cut the apples in slices, spread them on a sheet of foil & put them in the oven as the main course finished cooking, leaving them in there for about 15 minutes as the oven cooled.
It worked brilliantly; the slices were still juicy, but warm & just nicely soft (even the skins). And the perfume in the air just added to the pleasure.
Reminds me of another tip: should you ever need just a small amount of apple sauce, say to go with pork chops, visit the baby food shelf in the supermarket. Make sure you choose a pure apple puree, not something with added rice or thickener or flavour.
Chewing becomes a chore, made worse if hand problems make it trickier to use a knife to cut things into bite size pieces.
Simple pleasures aren’t always so simple anymore.
Take apples. Maybe the idea of holding one in your hand while you take a bite through the skin & savour the wonderful scent & feel the juices run – well maybe best just leave it as a memory. Of course you can always cut it into slices, peel off that tricky skin – using a fruit knife was always the politely genteel way of eating an apple at table.
And you can still make apple sauce, apple pie, apple crumble, Eve’s pudding … Or buy a dish ready made.
On Saturday I had what I don’t suppose is an original idea, when the weather turned so cold, wet & blustery as to make the idea of crunching through crispy juicy apples for dessert less attractive than it had earlier seemed, but nor did I want to faff about cooking a pudding.
The brainwave was to cut the apples in slices, spread them on a sheet of foil & put them in the oven as the main course finished cooking, leaving them in there for about 15 minutes as the oven cooled.
It worked brilliantly; the slices were still juicy, but warm & just nicely soft (even the skins). And the perfume in the air just added to the pleasure.
Reminds me of another tip: should you ever need just a small amount of apple sauce, say to go with pork chops, visit the baby food shelf in the supermarket. Make sure you choose a pure apple puree, not something with added rice or thickener or flavour.
Related post
An apple a day
Cut the fat. Don't cut it out
An apple a day
Cut the fat. Don't cut it out
Woolf report
I spent part of my weekend reading the report of the Woolf Inquiry into the LSE’s links with Libya & lessons to be learned.
I don’t expect that this particular sad & sorry chapter will earn much more than a footnote or passing reference when (not in my lifetime) the full & authoritative history of the West’s links with Libya, in the context of the need, or lust for, & dependence upon oil, & of the wars, violence & compromises (shabby or noble) which that entailed, comes to be written.
What the report did succeed in doing for me was to set into very sharp relief some of the consequences of British policies on higher education & the seemingly laudable aim of providing higher education for at least 50% of the population – an aim which was possibly necessary as a disguised way of coping with our inability to provide jobs for all those young people.
But without concomitant increases in public funding (or student fees), universities have been forced to seek alternative sources of finance from international students, donations & consultancy, competing in what is now a global business.
And in the particular case of LSE, declaring its independence from the federal University of London.
As such it had become a growing global business, but one which had not completely appreciated or understood the risks that that involved, nor taken care to make sure appropriate governance & management procedures were in place to cope with all those challenges.
Just keeping track of, & managing the learning of ‘ordinary’ students must be challenge enough; their number has grown from some 4,000 in 1980 to over 10,000 in 2010. (I think it was more like 3,000 in the 1960s), & in 1976 the entire University of London had only 40,000 internal students.
I don’t expect that this particular sad & sorry chapter will earn much more than a footnote or passing reference when (not in my lifetime) the full & authoritative history of the West’s links with Libya, in the context of the need, or lust for, & dependence upon oil, & of the wars, violence & compromises (shabby or noble) which that entailed, comes to be written.
What the report did succeed in doing for me was to set into very sharp relief some of the consequences of British policies on higher education & the seemingly laudable aim of providing higher education for at least 50% of the population – an aim which was possibly necessary as a disguised way of coping with our inability to provide jobs for all those young people.
But without concomitant increases in public funding (or student fees), universities have been forced to seek alternative sources of finance from international students, donations & consultancy, competing in what is now a global business.
And in the particular case of LSE, declaring its independence from the federal University of London.
As such it had become a growing global business, but one which had not completely appreciated or understood the risks that that involved, nor taken care to make sure appropriate governance & management procedures were in place to cope with all those challenges.
Just keeping track of, & managing the learning of ‘ordinary’ students must be challenge enough; their number has grown from some 4,000 in 1980 to over 10,000 in 2010. (I think it was more like 3,000 in the 1960s), & in 1976 the entire University of London had only 40,000 internal students.
Sunday, December 04, 2011
Nifty bin
Last week I became the proud owner of a Nifty Bin.
It is about the size of a household waste paper bin – the sort you might have by your desk if you have one of those (not gone all wifi), & still work with paper.
But the one I bought has a well fitting lid & a foot pedal to open it with. Inside there is a sturdy rubberised plastic bucket with a wire handle to make it easy to empty the waste from inside.
I think it was the scarlet colour which caught my eye. There was a big display of these bins just next to the lift in TKMAXX – some silver, some brushed steel, some black, but the scarlet was an exact match for one I already have in my kitchen.
Most discombobulatingly, I realise that that one must be 25 years old now. Bought in Peter Jones kitchen department, Italian, stylish, a perfect match for the small amount of red in the handmade tiles we had splashed out on for the surrounds to the counter tops in the new kitchen.
If I saw it outside now on a sunny day it might look sad & tired - like its owner, looking its age - but to my eye it is not showing any signs of wear; not on the outside at least, the bucket is a bit battered. Regular wipe downs to keep the outside looking pristine & hot soapy bleach to swish out the bucket are all it has needed to keep it in good nick.
The Nifty Bin is not quite a match for its bigger, older sibling – it has a domed silver top (bit like a baby dalek) rather than a flat red one, but otherwise seems identical in quality.
Just what I need to solve the problem of food waste now we can no longer mix it with cardboard or newspaper. I have been trying a large plastic bowl with a well-fitting lid, but that needs two hands to open, not good when you're trying to get rid of egg shells.
I saw the Nifty Bin on Friday but couldn’t carry it then; got around to going back on Tuesday – just as well because by then there were only three left, only one of them red, & one of the silver ones had a dent in its dome.
It cost £5.99. Can’t remember how much the bigger one cost but it must have been quite a lot more than that even in 1986 £s; it seemed extravagant for such a mundane item – couldn’t you just make do with plastic?
I was surprised to see from the label that this one was made in China.
A Google search for “Nifty Bin” failed to produce any information about the manufacturer. It did however produce a lovely photo of what Linzie Hunter calls a nifty bin – a 1950s design by Lucienne Day which her mother found in a charity shop, bringing another little wallow in nostalgia.
And the Peter Jones/John Lewis site offers a bigger (20 litre) version of my domed bin for £30. Doesn't say where it was made.
In its way, a parable & a paradigm for our time.
It is about the size of a household waste paper bin – the sort you might have by your desk if you have one of those (not gone all wifi), & still work with paper.
But the one I bought has a well fitting lid & a foot pedal to open it with. Inside there is a sturdy rubberised plastic bucket with a wire handle to make it easy to empty the waste from inside.
I think it was the scarlet colour which caught my eye. There was a big display of these bins just next to the lift in TKMAXX – some silver, some brushed steel, some black, but the scarlet was an exact match for one I already have in my kitchen.
Most discombobulatingly, I realise that that one must be 25 years old now. Bought in Peter Jones kitchen department, Italian, stylish, a perfect match for the small amount of red in the handmade tiles we had splashed out on for the surrounds to the counter tops in the new kitchen.
If I saw it outside now on a sunny day it might look sad & tired - like its owner, looking its age - but to my eye it is not showing any signs of wear; not on the outside at least, the bucket is a bit battered. Regular wipe downs to keep the outside looking pristine & hot soapy bleach to swish out the bucket are all it has needed to keep it in good nick.
The Nifty Bin is not quite a match for its bigger, older sibling – it has a domed silver top (bit like a baby dalek) rather than a flat red one, but otherwise seems identical in quality.
Just what I need to solve the problem of food waste now we can no longer mix it with cardboard or newspaper. I have been trying a large plastic bowl with a well-fitting lid, but that needs two hands to open, not good when you're trying to get rid of egg shells.
I saw the Nifty Bin on Friday but couldn’t carry it then; got around to going back on Tuesday – just as well because by then there were only three left, only one of them red, & one of the silver ones had a dent in its dome.
It cost £5.99. Can’t remember how much the bigger one cost but it must have been quite a lot more than that even in 1986 £s; it seemed extravagant for such a mundane item – couldn’t you just make do with plastic?
I was surprised to see from the label that this one was made in China.
A Google search for “Nifty Bin” failed to produce any information about the manufacturer. It did however produce a lovely photo of what Linzie Hunter calls a nifty bin – a 1950s design by Lucienne Day which her mother found in a charity shop, bringing another little wallow in nostalgia.
And the Peter Jones/John Lewis site offers a bigger (20 litre) version of my domed bin for £30. Doesn't say where it was made.
In its way, a parable & a paradigm for our time.
Train travel
This poem by Edna St Vincent Millay (how I used to envy that name!) has certainly changed its meaning for me since I was a child; then I thought it was just a poem about lovely lovely train journeys, written by someone who knew all about itchy feet.
Travel
The railroad track is miles away,
And the day is loud with voices speaking,
Yet there isn't a train goes by all day
But I hear its whistle shrieking.
All night there isn't a train goes by,
Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming,
But I see its cinders red on the sky,
And hear its engine steaming.
My heart is warm with friends I make,
And better friends I'll not be knowing;
Yet there isn't a train I'd rather take,
No matter where it's going.
Travel
The railroad track is miles away,
And the day is loud with voices speaking,
Yet there isn't a train goes by all day
But I hear its whistle shrieking.
All night there isn't a train goes by,
Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming,
But I see its cinders red on the sky,
And hear its engine steaming.
My heart is warm with friends I make,
And better friends I'll not be knowing;
Yet there isn't a train I'd rather take,
No matter where it's going.
Saturday, December 03, 2011
*!*!*! Limerick
I suspected some kind of wind up PR stunt when I heard on BBC World Service (no less) last night that residents of an Irish village had been banned from a social media site on the grounds of taste & decency.
Well there might be some exaggeration & misunderstanding, but there really is a place called Effin
And there are Effin Songs & a well known character called Effin Eddie.
All from Limerick.
You couldn’t make it up
According to the OED an effiner is a rare & obsolete word for a refiner of silver or gold.
Well there might be some exaggeration & misunderstanding, but there really is a place called Effin
And there are Effin Songs & a well known character called Effin Eddie.
All from Limerick.
You couldn’t make it up
Links
Effin parish
Effin Songs
Effin Eddie
Facebook finds town too Effin rude for site
Related post
Evidence based law
Effin parish
Effin Songs
Effin Eddie
Facebook finds town too Effin rude for site
Related post
Evidence based law
According to the OED an effiner is a rare & obsolete word for a refiner of silver or gold.
Normal service
No posts yesterday – there was a fire alarm in the library before I got round to publishing anything. I didn’t hang around – it was much too cold to wait outside.
The fire engine was here for quite a while – I could see it from the bus stop, still there when the bus came.
Fortunately it turned out to be a false alarm.
The fire engine was here for quite a while – I could see it from the bus stop, still there when the bus came.
Fortunately it turned out to be a false alarm.
Thursday, December 01, 2011
Just 14
In Our Time did Christina Rossetti this week.
I was rather startled to hear that she wrote Remember when she was just 14.
No wonder it so affected me when I was about that age!
Of course I had misheard. Listening more closely on the BBC iPlayer, I realise that Melvyn actually said that she achieved so much ‘in just 14 lines’.
I was rather startled to hear that she wrote Remember when she was just 14.
No wonder it so affected me when I was about that age!
Of course I had misheard. Listening more closely on the BBC iPlayer, I realise that Melvyn actually said that she achieved so much ‘in just 14 lines’.
Who’d have thought it
My heart sank when I got off the bus in town yesterday – teenagers all over the place. Just like half term all over again.
It was the newsagent who gave me a different slant on things.
We’ve got so used to only “hearing” the bad news, we don’t stop to think there might be a good side to it.
He had mentally prepared for a bad day: during the week most of his custom comes from those who work in the government & council offices & facilities in the surrounding streets.
What he got was lots of people coming into town for the day.
Not so good of course for those who get most of their custom from a nearby school or college. Winners & losers.
I shouldn’t have been surprised when I went down to the shopping centre, but I was. Lots of younger children, mostly with just one adult rather than en famille as tends to be the case at weekends. Christmas shopping, with no sense of the frenzy of recent years, a more sober sense of purpose you might say – but the children were clearly happy. I don't think all the shoppers were strikers - just people who needed to find a way to keep the children amused on their unexpected holiday.
It was all hands to the till in Primark. McDonalds was having a bonanza.
Sometimes Dad or granddad in sole charge; one group – the two young adults in charge surely not old enough to be the parents - who were off to see a film after their meal; another which put me more in mind of a school group & made me think that perhaps those who were on strike might be providing supervision for the children of those who were not.
I haven’t overheard any negative comments about the strike (apart from those on the radio) – but then I would expect more of a sense of solidarity & fair treatment here oop north.
I wouldn’t expect yesterday’s spending to be in any way an addition to what people were planning to spend, more just making best use of the time available for doing all the extra work of Christmas. And, most important of all, to keep the children happy & not spread the anxiety on to them.
Even so retailers are probably grateful for the cash flow benefits.
The BBC did not seem to have heard of this good news.
It was the newsagent who gave me a different slant on things.
We’ve got so used to only “hearing” the bad news, we don’t stop to think there might be a good side to it.
He had mentally prepared for a bad day: during the week most of his custom comes from those who work in the government & council offices & facilities in the surrounding streets.
What he got was lots of people coming into town for the day.
Not so good of course for those who get most of their custom from a nearby school or college. Winners & losers.
I shouldn’t have been surprised when I went down to the shopping centre, but I was. Lots of younger children, mostly with just one adult rather than en famille as tends to be the case at weekends. Christmas shopping, with no sense of the frenzy of recent years, a more sober sense of purpose you might say – but the children were clearly happy. I don't think all the shoppers were strikers - just people who needed to find a way to keep the children amused on their unexpected holiday.
It was all hands to the till in Primark. McDonalds was having a bonanza.
Sometimes Dad or granddad in sole charge; one group – the two young adults in charge surely not old enough to be the parents - who were off to see a film after their meal; another which put me more in mind of a school group & made me think that perhaps those who were on strike might be providing supervision for the children of those who were not.
I haven’t overheard any negative comments about the strike (apart from those on the radio) – but then I would expect more of a sense of solidarity & fair treatment here oop north.
I wouldn’t expect yesterday’s spending to be in any way an addition to what people were planning to spend, more just making best use of the time available for doing all the extra work of Christmas. And, most important of all, to keep the children happy & not spread the anxiety on to them.
Even so retailers are probably grateful for the cash flow benefits.
The BBC did not seem to have heard of this good news.
Link
Public sector strikes: Business assesses cost
Related post
Caring fathers
Public sector strikes: Business assesses cost
Related post
Caring fathers
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Investing in breast cancer
An item from The Times last September (found while doing the Sunday afternoon tidying up) announced that General Electric has joined with venture capitalists to form a $100m fund to finance the development of early detection, diagnosis & treatments for breast cancer.
Well what’s not good about that?
The worry is that the prospect of profits focuses on treatment of a disease which is becoming ever more prevalent, it seems – a news item the other week quoted a lifetime risk for women in this country which has now risen to 1 in 8 – the risk of getting cancer just by being a woman now the same as that of getting lung cancer for a smoker?
Shouldn’t we be putting more into finding out why – how much of this is down to methods of detection which find ‘cancers’ which do not need treatment?
Unit costs of cancer speciality drugs are rising by about 13% a year – that’s worth a $100m investment!
Well what’s not good about that?
The worry is that the prospect of profits focuses on treatment of a disease which is becoming ever more prevalent, it seems – a news item the other week quoted a lifetime risk for women in this country which has now risen to 1 in 8 – the risk of getting cancer just by being a woman now the same as that of getting lung cancer for a smoker?
Shouldn’t we be putting more into finding out why – how much of this is down to methods of detection which find ‘cancers’ which do not need treatment?
Unit costs of cancer speciality drugs are rising by about 13% a year – that’s worth a $100m investment!
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Behind the screen
This weeks Sunday afternoon tidying up unearthed a clipping from The Times which I had set aside to form the basis for a blog post & then forgotten about.
This month should have seen the start of a pilot programme to teach schoolchildren how to program computers. Called Behind the Screen, supported by companies such as IBM, Google & Cisco (no mention of Microsoft in this report). From a modest start in twenty schools it will – ‘ultimately’ - develop GCSE & A level subjects.
It is not clear how long this scheme has been in the hatching – it is odd to start part way into the school year like this. David Willets made the announcement at the British Science Festival in Bradford on 15 September, just a month after the Edinburgh TV Festival at which Eric Schmidt had criticised the lack of any such teaching in this country. If this is really a direct response to that criticism then it seems dangerously rushed.
It is very odd that children have been learning about genes & DNA at school – Watson & Crick made their discovery in 1953 – but not higher-level programming which was being established at much the same time.
It was hard work finding the official details of the Behind the Scenes project on the web – until Thinq_ led me to e-skills UK after I had given up on the website for Business, Innovation & Skills (Willetts’ own department).
I have downloaded the details to read at home when the library is closed by industrial action tomorrow.
This month should have seen the start of a pilot programme to teach schoolchildren how to program computers. Called Behind the Screen, supported by companies such as IBM, Google & Cisco (no mention of Microsoft in this report). From a modest start in twenty schools it will – ‘ultimately’ - develop GCSE & A level subjects.
It is not clear how long this scheme has been in the hatching – it is odd to start part way into the school year like this. David Willets made the announcement at the British Science Festival in Bradford on 15 September, just a month after the Edinburgh TV Festival at which Eric Schmidt had criticised the lack of any such teaching in this country. If this is really a direct response to that criticism then it seems dangerously rushed.
It is very odd that children have been learning about genes & DNA at school – Watson & Crick made their discovery in 1953 – but not higher-level programming which was being established at much the same time.
It was hard work finding the official details of the Behind the Scenes project on the web – until Thinq_ led me to e-skills UK after I had given up on the website for Business, Innovation & Skills (Willetts’ own department).
I have downloaded the details to read at home when the library is closed by industrial action tomorrow.
Links
Re-designing the IT curriculum for young people in England
Government details industry-backed IT GCSE pilot
BCS welcomes move by David Willetts to transform ICT school curriculum
Townley Grammar School in Bexleyheath will pilot the new scheme
EDINBURGH TV FESTIVAL: Eric Schmidt's MacTaggart Lecture in full
Children will get closer to IT in new curriculum initiative
Google - Behind The Screen
Re-designing the IT curriculum for young people in England
Government details industry-backed IT GCSE pilot
BCS welcomes move by David Willetts to transform ICT school curriculum
Townley Grammar School in Bexleyheath will pilot the new scheme
EDINBURGH TV FESTIVAL: Eric Schmidt's MacTaggart Lecture in full
Children will get closer to IT in new curriculum initiative
Google - Behind The Screen
Monday, November 28, 2011
Evidence based law
Can you remember what you were doing on 10 March 2009?
Or what was in the news? My own blog doesn’t show anything on which I felt compelled to comment.
I would be surprised if even the local press carried reports of one routine incident which took place on that day in Hackney, east London, a borough which saw a lot of action in last summer’s riots.
One group of people must remember all too clearly.
No cannabis was found. The young man went on to use the F-word twice more & was duly arrested for this; there was a “scuffle” & in due course he appeared before the magistrates charged both for the swearing & for assault on a police officer in the execution of his duty.
He was found Not Guilty of assault, but Guilty of swearing & fined £50.
There is a problem however: Parliament has not made it an offence to swear in public, as such, (something for which most of us must be grateful). The prosecution must show that ”the defendant used threatening, abusive or insulting words within the hearing of someone else who was caused or was likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress by hearing them.”
And so the case finally found its way to Appeal on Thursday, 17 November 2011, whereupon the rice pudding really hit the fan, & the events of that day in March 2009 suddenly became news.
Because, according to large sections of the press, the Judge declared that ‘It’s OK to swear at policemen because they’re used to it.’
That last quote comes from a piece by Robert Crampton (a journalist I normally admire) writing in The Times last Tuesday. He lives in Hackney & wrote of a hard core of fellow residents, young males who are ‘dangerous, occasionally lethally so … a potential menace to anyone who gets in their way … ultra-sensitive to perceived slights … anything that interferes with them behaving in any way they want.’
The job of keeping the rest of the population safe from such feral beasts falls to the police & the courts, so ‘it really isn’t sensible to do anything that undermines the authority of either.’ He ends with the words ‘You couldn’t make it up’, implying that that is exactly what the judge did with the law.
If however you read the judge’s written report it is clear that he not only could not, but did not, do that.
Fortunately the two lawyers acting in this appeal had boiled these down, ”in their concise and helpful submissions”, to just six.
A number of cases establish that expletives such as "fuck" or "fucking" are potentially abusive words, whether uttered to a police officer or a member of the public.
But it is a question of fact, to be decided by the magistrates on the basis of the evidence presented to them, whether words and behaviour (with which police officers are indeed too wearily familiar) produced a reaction only of boredom or, in the circumstances (including the time, the place, who the police officers were), caused the harassment, alarm or distress, which are needed to turn use of such abhorrent language into a crime.
The lawyer who was in charge of the case at the magistrates court provided no such evidence – the police officers were not asked the question, nor was evidence presented to show that anybody else had complained.
Where witnesses have said nothing and been asked nothing about experiencing harassment, alarm or distress, there is no sound basis for the court to reach that conclusion for itself.
BUT, said the judge, this is not to say that such words can NEVER cause police officers to experience alarm, distress or harassment.
We can all draw our own inferences, based on such evidence as we have heard or read about in this case, together with our own experience & prejudice.
Perhaps he was one of the dangerous young males – why else would the police be searching him? In which case he should have been found guilty as an example to others of his kind.
Or perhaps it is a tale wearyingly familiar to anyone who numbers black males among their respectable friends & family, in which case he ought never to have been brought to court in the first place.
But these inferences are based on generalised belief, not evidence specific to this occasion.
We hear a lot these days about the need for ‘evidence’ in science, medicine & politics. Sometimes we may doubt the validity of such evidence & so doubt the need for anything more than ‘common sense’ in reaching decisions or taking action in those areas of life.
But surely we are all agreed on the need for evidence-based law.
So I say three cheers for Mr Justice Bean, who kept this need firmly in the front of his mind. And for the system which puts it all down in writing & makes it available for us to read at a few clicks of a mouse.
It has taken approaching three years to get this conviction overturned – a long time in the life of a young man. If he was not known to the police before, he is now.
And if there is now a widespread belief that it is OK to swear at the police, well that comes from journalists, not the judges.
Thanks to Bystander & Beneath the Wig whose blogs pointed me to the evidence in this case.
Or what was in the news? My own blog doesn’t show anything on which I felt compelled to comment.
I would be surprised if even the local press carried reports of one routine incident which took place on that day in Hackney, east London, a borough which saw a lot of action in last summer’s riots.
One group of people must remember all too clearly.
PC Challis and PCSO Mr Mcllvaney were looking for people who, the police had been informed, might be in possession of cannabis. They found one young woman and three young men … outside a block of flats. The officers decided to search the three men. One objected and said, "Fuck this man, I ain't been smoking nothing". PC Challis told him that if he continued to swear he would be arrested for an offence under section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986.
No cannabis was found. The young man went on to use the F-word twice more & was duly arrested for this; there was a “scuffle” & in due course he appeared before the magistrates charged both for the swearing & for assault on a police officer in the execution of his duty.
He was found Not Guilty of assault, but Guilty of swearing & fined £50.
There is a problem however: Parliament has not made it an offence to swear in public, as such, (something for which most of us must be grateful). The prosecution must show that ”the defendant used threatening, abusive or insulting words within the hearing of someone else who was caused or was likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress by hearing them.”
And so the case finally found its way to Appeal on Thursday, 17 November 2011, whereupon the rice pudding really hit the fan, & the events of that day in March 2009 suddenly became news.
Because, according to large sections of the press, the Judge declared that ‘It’s OK to swear at policemen because they’re used to it.’
That last quote comes from a piece by Robert Crampton (a journalist I normally admire) writing in The Times last Tuesday. He lives in Hackney & wrote of a hard core of fellow residents, young males who are ‘dangerous, occasionally lethally so … a potential menace to anyone who gets in their way … ultra-sensitive to perceived slights … anything that interferes with them behaving in any way they want.’
The job of keeping the rest of the population safe from such feral beasts falls to the police & the courts, so ‘it really isn’t sensible to do anything that undermines the authority of either.’ He ends with the words ‘You couldn’t make it up’, implying that that is exactly what the judge did with the law.
If however you read the judge’s written report it is clear that he not only could not, but did not, do that.
“Such language is familiar to most courts. A search on the legal database Lexis for cases in which either the word "fuck" or the word "fucking" appear produces 2,124 results. Even allowing for duplication in the way that cases are reported and transcribed, or for cases which appear in more than one report, the total is still very large.”The judge must pay due regard to the decisions made in those cases; it has all been heard before..
Fortunately the two lawyers acting in this appeal had boiled these down, ”in their concise and helpful submissions”, to just six.
A number of cases establish that expletives such as "fuck" or "fucking" are potentially abusive words, whether uttered to a police officer or a member of the public.
But it is a question of fact, to be decided by the magistrates on the basis of the evidence presented to them, whether words and behaviour (with which police officers are indeed too wearily familiar) produced a reaction only of boredom or, in the circumstances (including the time, the place, who the police officers were), caused the harassment, alarm or distress, which are needed to turn use of such abhorrent language into a crime.
The lawyer who was in charge of the case at the magistrates court provided no such evidence – the police officers were not asked the question, nor was evidence presented to show that anybody else had complained.
Where witnesses have said nothing and been asked nothing about experiencing harassment, alarm or distress, there is no sound basis for the court to reach that conclusion for itself.
“This is particularly so in the case of police officers because … they hear such words all too frequently as part of their job.”
BUT, said the judge, this is not to say that such words can NEVER cause police officers to experience alarm, distress or harassment.
It depends … on the facts. And where a witness has been silent on the point it is wrong to draw inferences.
We can all draw our own inferences, based on such evidence as we have heard or read about in this case, together with our own experience & prejudice.
Perhaps he was one of the dangerous young males – why else would the police be searching him? In which case he should have been found guilty as an example to others of his kind.
Or perhaps it is a tale wearyingly familiar to anyone who numbers black males among their respectable friends & family, in which case he ought never to have been brought to court in the first place.
But these inferences are based on generalised belief, not evidence specific to this occasion.
We hear a lot these days about the need for ‘evidence’ in science, medicine & politics. Sometimes we may doubt the validity of such evidence & so doubt the need for anything more than ‘common sense’ in reaching decisions or taking action in those areas of life.
But surely we are all agreed on the need for evidence-based law.
So I say three cheers for Mr Justice Bean, who kept this need firmly in the front of his mind. And for the system which puts it all down in writing & makes it available for us to read at a few clicks of a mouse.
It has taken approaching three years to get this conviction overturned – a long time in the life of a young man. If he was not known to the police before, he is now.
And if there is now a widespread belief that it is OK to swear at the police, well that comes from journalists, not the judges.
Thanks to Bystander & Beneath the Wig whose blogs pointed me to the evidence in this case.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Cultural gods
I was having a look at the Isaacson biography of Steve Jobs in the supermarket on Friday evening. Just idle curiosity, passing the time until bus time. I can’t imagine, honestly, that I shall want to read the whole thing; Isaacson’s 700 or so pages on Einstein were a bit too-much-information for my taste, & I doubt Jobs is worth that many hours of my life.
I did learn one interesting thing however – Steve Jobs could not write computer programs.
But then neither can most people in this world, so I guess that was the secret of his appeal to all those who cannot imagine why anyone who is really artistic should want to do something so boringly uncreative, who believe that real inspiration lies with those who know how to use these hidden hieroglyphs & turn them into art.
Links
Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography
Einstein: His Life and Universe
Related posts
Is there an app for computer language?
Creativity
I did learn one interesting thing however – Steve Jobs could not write computer programs.
But then neither can most people in this world, so I guess that was the secret of his appeal to all those who cannot imagine why anyone who is really artistic should want to do something so boringly uncreative, who believe that real inspiration lies with those who know how to use these hidden hieroglyphs & turn them into art.
Links
Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography
Einstein: His Life and Universe
Related posts
Is there an app for computer language?
Creativity
Bittersweet
Farm yards, for all their muck & smells, form an important part of my childhood memory, so this poem by Edward Thomas has particular nostalgic resonance.
Tall Nettles
Tall nettles cover up, as they have done
These many springs, the rusty harrow, the plough
Long worn out, and the roller made of stone:
Only the elm butt tops the nettles now.
This corner of the farmyard I like most:
As well as any bloom upon a flower
I like the dust on the nettles, never lost
Except to prove the sweetness of a shower.
And that poem in turn brings to mind Mary Oliver’s Milkweed, which, even when standing dry & leafless in the autumn, make it
… easy to believe
each one was once young & delicate, also
frightened; also capable
of a certain amount of rough joy.
Tall Nettles
Tall nettles cover up, as they have done
These many springs, the rusty harrow, the plough
Long worn out, and the roller made of stone:
Only the elm butt tops the nettles now.
This corner of the farmyard I like most:
As well as any bloom upon a flower
I like the dust on the nettles, never lost
Except to prove the sweetness of a shower.
Edward Thomas
And that poem in turn brings to mind Mary Oliver’s Milkweed, which, even when standing dry & leafless in the autumn, make it
… easy to believe
each one was once young & delicate, also
frightened; also capable
of a certain amount of rough joy.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Housing statistics surprise
I got a very pleasant surprise when I went to the web site of the Communities & Local Government Department: nice clean home page uncluttered with ministerial mugshots & boastings; clear simple links - three short steps brought me to the Housing Statistics page with more straightforward links (no mention of ‘products’) & - I need to sit down or I might faint – a downloadable Index of Data. It was nothing like so helpful last time I went there, probably a good couple of years ago.
I have not been able to bring myself to visit the new ONS website since about two weeks after its trumpeted re-launch back in August. I found the same old problem of going round in circles, with, just to add insult to the injury, messages to say that existing links had been broken.
I have not been able to bring myself to visit the new ONS website since about two weeks after its trumpeted re-launch back in August. I found the same old problem of going round in circles, with, just to add insult to the injury, messages to say that existing links had been broken.
Same old, same old
We had another power outage last night. This one seemed quite localised – the street lights stayed lit on the main road up the hill & on the new(ish) housing estate down the lane.
It lasted about 90 minutes, from 10.30 to midnight. Not a bad response time for the reapirmen a Friday night, I suppose.
It lasted about 90 minutes, from 10.30 to midnight. Not a bad response time for the reapirmen a Friday night, I suppose.
Friday, November 25, 2011
Private life
At about 11 o’clock one night, about twenty years ago, I was walking back to the place I was staying in Covent Garden, up one of the side streets leading from The Strand.
Suddenly a flock of men on motorbikes & scooters drew noisily into the kerb a few feet in front of me. I was more startled than alarmed – What on earth?
A taxi drew up, & out stepped Jerry Hall & another woman; a brief, professional pose, lights flashed, cameras clicked; an anonymous metal door opened in the wall to reveal a dingy staircase leading down. Jerry & her friend disappeared inside, the flock departed, as noisily as they had come.
On all the occasions I had walked that way before I had never noticed the door in the wall, or had just thought it was there as an escape hatch or for taking deliveries of coal in the old days. Now I noticed, for the first time, a very discreet name plate proclaiming the name of a temporarily famous & fashionable London nite-spot which figured frequently in the gossip columns.
That was my one & only brush with the paparazzi, but it made me thankful that my daily life was of no interest to the press.
Suddenly a flock of men on motorbikes & scooters drew noisily into the kerb a few feet in front of me. I was more startled than alarmed – What on earth?
A taxi drew up, & out stepped Jerry Hall & another woman; a brief, professional pose, lights flashed, cameras clicked; an anonymous metal door opened in the wall to reveal a dingy staircase leading down. Jerry & her friend disappeared inside, the flock departed, as noisily as they had come.
On all the occasions I had walked that way before I had never noticed the door in the wall, or had just thought it was there as an escape hatch or for taking deliveries of coal in the old days. Now I noticed, for the first time, a very discreet name plate proclaiming the name of a temporarily famous & fashionable London nite-spot which figured frequently in the gossip columns.
That was my one & only brush with the paparazzi, but it made me thankful that my daily life was of no interest to the press.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Is there an app for computer language?
When I Googled Steve Henry yesterday I learned that he has set up a company called Decoded, which claims to teach anyone to code in a day.
I was left wondering what coding means in this context, & today I got round to checking whether it is what I would, in my old-fashioned way, call computer programming.
The short answer is Yes, but that still leaves open the question of what anyone means by either 'coding' or 'programming' these days.
When I began, 'coding' was the really heavy stuff, written in source code, assembly language, or even binary; 'programming' was simpler, for those who were not computer scientists, merely 'users' - it involved so called high level languages, supposedly much closer to how humans thought & spoke.
Later on when I talked of ‘programming’ in SPSS I was told, sniffily, that that wasn’t programming – only ‘languages’ such as Fortran required programming skills, SPSS was just a ‘package.’
And so it goes.
But I was surprised recently to see that there are calls for computer programming to be taught in schools – what on earth are all those ICT exams for, if they do not include at least the basics of programming?
In the days of the BBC micro lots of people (well, mainly boys & their fathers) used to program in BASIC, & you might even sometimes find a newspaper article explaining how, for example, to write a bit of code to tell your computer how to draw a circle, or find prime numbers.
Even before that I remember Logo, & very small children being taught to ‘program’ a computer with a turtle (which could be said to have evolved into a mouse).
It is a very long time since I gave up any attempt to keep up with the developments in coding or programming, & in truth I am in two minds whether teaching coding in schools would really offer any benefits. For starters there will be endless arguments over what kind of coding, which languages etc, etc.
On the other hand even my limited experience taught me a great deal, not least of the many ways in which human thinking departs from the strict, & restricted, logic of computers, (however wonderful the results which flow from the latter), the time it takes to unpick the logic of any problem.
Who knows, even a little, but more widespread, knowledge might save us from politicians & policy makers who are to easily seduced or bamboozled by those who can both make & break the code.
Links
Logo (programming language)
Programming a screen turtle
Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas
BBC microcomputer history
Steve Jobs: Tinker, Tailor, Tweaker?
The Pioneering New Company Changing How We Teach Children (and Adults) About Technology
The art of assembly language
Source code
Introduction to Fortran programming
Fortran IV self-taught
Logo (programming language)
Programming a screen turtle
Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas
BBC microcomputer history
Steve Jobs: Tinker, Tailor, Tweaker?
The Pioneering New Company Changing How We Teach Children (and Adults) About Technology
The art of assembly language
Source code
Introduction to Fortran programming
Fortran IV self-taught
Who governs
There has been plenty of criticism of the appointment of unelected technocrats to govern Italy & Greece – not to mention the failure of the Egyptian military to make good on their promise of more democracy.
But just how different are we, when the answer to every problem is to call for an independent enquiry, Office, Quango, Czar …
But just how different are we, when the answer to every problem is to call for an independent enquiry, Office, Quango, Czar …
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Family silver
When one sells the family silver, one does not usually continue to gain value from its use.
So said the Earl of Gowrie in a House of Lords Debate in 1984 soon after Harold Macmillan's famous attack on Mrs Thatcher's privatisation policies.
Now Who Owns Our City, a report by the University of Cambridge & Development Securities shows that more than half of all the buildings in the Square Mile that constitutes the City of London are in foreign hands – up from only 8% in 1980 just after Thatcher came to power.
London attracts more foreign investment than any other city in the world. Germans are the biggest foreign owners in The City proper. And they have not even had to fight a war for it – I think we are meant to be pleased & proud, because unlike migrant workers they don’t have to actually come & live here. Instead all this interest means that City offices (in the real estate sense) show ‘remarkable resilience’ in the face of global meltdown.
And that ‘traditional owners’ – institutions, charities, public sector bodies & livery companies – have been able to swap their equity for cash.
I await with interest (the metaphorical kind) the report which will tell us what that cash has all been spent on – investments which will produce an even better return or the equivalent of new cars & foreign holidays.
Debt problems are much harder to solve without a strong asset base - isn't that what we tell the banks?
Something or nothing
Evan Davis talked to advertising man Steve Henry this week in his Radio 4 series about deception.
Anadin was mentioned. Henry maintained that they were allowed to get away with the 1950s slogan Nothing Acts Faster Than Anadin because it was, essentially, saying that all painkillers are really just the same, Anadin is no different – if the wording tended to make you think it was saying Anadin was better, that was your mistake.
The reaction of just about everybody I knew was that if nothing acts faster, then I’ll take nothing, thank you.
To this day I think it a waste of money to buy anything other than bog standard generics, though I wish I knew why chains such as Superdrug have an own brand version which is priced at nearly double an alternative branded version.
Anadin was mentioned. Henry maintained that they were allowed to get away with the 1950s slogan Nothing Acts Faster Than Anadin because it was, essentially, saying that all painkillers are really just the same, Anadin is no different – if the wording tended to make you think it was saying Anadin was better, that was your mistake.
The reaction of just about everybody I knew was that if nothing acts faster, then I’ll take nothing, thank you.
To this day I think it a waste of money to buy anything other than bog standard generics, though I wish I knew why chains such as Superdrug have an own brand version which is priced at nearly double an alternative branded version.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Learning about space & time
A small girl at the unselfconsciously chatty stage was sitting behind me on the bus the other day.
Conversation turned to a train trip she had recently taken.
Do you like travelling on the train? asked the young man with her – not her father, probably a brother or uncle I thought.
Yes, I liked the train. But it’s slow. Trains go very slowly.
The young man laughed: Noooo. Trains aren’t slow. Trains go very fast. You just think it was slow because it took a long time. You travelled a long way. You went far.
The little girl fell silent for a long time. I swear I could hear the wheels turning as she pondered this new thought.
Conversation turned to a train trip she had recently taken.
Do you like travelling on the train? asked the young man with her – not her father, probably a brother or uncle I thought.
Yes, I liked the train. But it’s slow. Trains go very slowly.
The young man laughed: Noooo. Trains aren’t slow. Trains go very fast. You just think it was slow because it took a long time. You travelled a long way. You went far.
The little girl fell silent for a long time. I swear I could hear the wheels turning as she pondered this new thought.
Related posts
The enemy
Standing on the bus
The enemy
Standing on the bus
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