Tony Blair vouchsafed an interview to The Times last Saturday to mark the 10th anniversary of Teach First, a charitable organisation which fast tracks top graduates into teaching in challenging schools.
Blair’s middle son did two years in the scheme which, his father said, ‘helped him to develop courage.’
But not to settle into teaching as a career. He is now a sports agent.
I could not help but wonder what kind of sports, what kind of agency. Olympics, perhaps?
But no; young Blair is registered as a FIFA football agent
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Monday, January 16, 2012
Number 13
According to a report from FindaProperty the number 13 knocks £6,511 off the value of a house – at least it has done so for those so numbered which have been sold in the last decade.
Now assuming we are comparing like with like (do we mean houses only, or are flats included?) this has implications for the recently reported finding that having the number 1 increases the value of your property, or indeed the comparison between the sale value of odd & even numbers. Thirteen is obviously a very special case, an outlier which should be removed from the comparisons
Now assuming we are comparing like with like (do we mean houses only, or are flats included?) this has implications for the recently reported finding that having the number 1 increases the value of your property, or indeed the comparison between the sale value of odd & even numbers. Thirteen is obviously a very special case, an outlier which should be removed from the comparisons
Related post
Odd houses
Odd houses
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Cheer up
Once more Hardy - who grows ever more of a comfort as I grow older.
Just now a week with no wind or rain, warm enough to go out without beng all trussed up in acrylic & down & waterproofing, would be paradise.
To Life
O life with the sad seared face,
I weary of seeing thee,
And thy draggled cloak, and thy hobbling pace,
And thy too-forced pleasantry!
I know what thou would'st tell
Of Death, Time, Destiny -
I have known it long, and know, too, well
What it all means for me.
But canst thou not array
Thyself in rare disguise,
And feign like truth, for one mad day,
That Earth is Paradise?
I'll tune me to the mood,
And mumm with thee till eve;
And maybe what as interlude
I feign, I shall believe!
Just now a week with no wind or rain, warm enough to go out without beng all trussed up in acrylic & down & waterproofing, would be paradise.
To Life
O life with the sad seared face,
I weary of seeing thee,
And thy draggled cloak, and thy hobbling pace,
And thy too-forced pleasantry!
I know what thou would'st tell
Of Death, Time, Destiny -
I have known it long, and know, too, well
What it all means for me.
But canst thou not array
Thyself in rare disguise,
And feign like truth, for one mad day,
That Earth is Paradise?
I'll tune me to the mood,
And mumm with thee till eve;
And maybe what as interlude
I feign, I shall believe!
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Open data
On New Years Eve Tim Berners-Lee had an opinion piece in The Times about open data:
As far as Government statistics were concerned however this came to an end with the publication of the Rayner review of 1981.
“All this data has been paid for by taxpayers. So the … mission will be to make sure that we can all make the best use of it”The argument that the data is already paid for is interesting & used to form the basis of the pricing policy for Government publications; in the days when printed paper was the only option. marginal cost pricing meant covering the costs of printing & distribution only, content was free at that point to the user. As an undergraduates we could be expected to furnish ourselves with a copy of some relevant Government White Paper or statistical digest which, from memory, generally used to cost less than 2/-, cheap even in 1960s money.
As far as Government statistics were concerned however this came to an end with the publication of the Rayner review of 1981.
“There is no more reason for the government to act as universal provider in the statistical field than in any other”And that wasn’t all: rather than provide data at marginal cost we were to start charging what the market would bear. Which of course posed a problem when the market may, in part, consist of students or members of the public keen to participate in debate as informed citizens of a democracy, & in other parts of businesses to whom information offers great potential for profit & who can therefore afford to price small none commercial users out of the market.Cmnd 8236: THE GOVERNMENTS STATISTICAL SERVICES.
All out of kelter
The ducks were in the stream right opposite our front gate on Friday morning – a whole group, both males & females. No ducklings, though it won’t be a surprise if they put in an appearance soon – everything is so topsy turvey with the weather.
The whole of the Christmas holiday period was marred by high wind & rain, made even worse in our case by continuing power cuts, of which we were getting sometimes two a day until, on the first Friday of the New Year, a lot of men & vans turned up & started to dig a hole in the road in the lane just this side of the bridge.
Although they have not yet completed the job, the temporary fix has at least meant no more interruptions to service. And with so much practice I have at last learned to reset the bedside radio without recourse to the sheet of instructions.
It may just have been ordinary wear & tear to something but I suspect that water must have been getting in to the underground cables. And that is probably a consequence of the strange weather too, since it meant that the usual timetable for sweeping up the leaves to keep them out of the drains finished well before they finally fell from the trees last year.
The whole of the Christmas holiday period was marred by high wind & rain, made even worse in our case by continuing power cuts, of which we were getting sometimes two a day until, on the first Friday of the New Year, a lot of men & vans turned up & started to dig a hole in the road in the lane just this side of the bridge.
Although they have not yet completed the job, the temporary fix has at least meant no more interruptions to service. And with so much practice I have at last learned to reset the bedside radio without recourse to the sheet of instructions.
It may just have been ordinary wear & tear to something but I suspect that water must have been getting in to the underground cables. And that is probably a consequence of the strange weather too, since it meant that the usual timetable for sweeping up the leaves to keep them out of the drains finished well before they finally fell from the trees last year.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Join the club
Earlier this afternoon I passed two young women on the street – one with a new baby – who were having a very animated discussion on the subject of ‘no money’.
Oh – you should join the Job Centre, advised one. They’ll pay you to go on a course.
Oh – you should join the Job Centre, advised one. They’ll pay you to go on a course.
A confusion of degrees
Over on the Economix blog Catherine Rampell has been looking at the graduate premium in America.
Could some – even the majority - of the continuing benefit to lifetime earnings of a mere bachelor degree in fact be put down to the even greater rewards of higher degrees or professional qualifications for which a first degree is a prerequisite?
Well yes, maybe but a first degree is still worthwhile.
This does not quite seem to fit with the pessimism about the value of a PhD which was in The [British-based but internationally read] Economist just before Christmas.
I wonder if anyone has ever looked at UK figures in this way.
Could some – even the majority - of the continuing benefit to lifetime earnings of a mere bachelor degree in fact be put down to the even greater rewards of higher degrees or professional qualifications for which a first degree is a prerequisite?
Well yes, maybe but a first degree is still worthwhile.
This does not quite seem to fit with the pessimism about the value of a PhD which was in The [British-based but internationally read] Economist just before Christmas.
I wonder if anyone has ever looked at UK figures in this way.
Link
Getting a Degree: Less Rigor, More Value
Related post
Doctored
Getting a Degree: Less Rigor, More Value
Related post
Doctored
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Conservative class
Another startling fact I learned from Supermac is that the Macmillan family sold Highgrove to the Prince of Wales, & that Rab Butler sold Gatcombe Park to the Queen, as a residence for Princess Anne. As author DR Thorpe remarked, it is some indication of the world in which the higher Tories lived at that time.
These days they socialise in the world of media moguls & tabloid editors, & despite moats & duck houses, their houses may not quite meet the degree of desirability demanded by the modern royalty of bankers & oligarchs. Our politicians are, at best, mere millionaires, not a single billion between them.
Thorpe also said that Macmillan’s demise marked the moment when it was no longer advisable or profitable for Etonians to wear their old school tie. I wonder if David Cameron even possesses such a thing? There are still 19 other Etonians among the current crop of MPs however.
On balance I suspect that, despite the disagreements over policy, the Conservative Party is really rather pleased to have their first proper gentleman leader since Sir Alec Douglas-Home: ‘The fact that Edward Heath did not hold back in his criticisms of Margaret Thatcher was proof to older Conservatives who often actually agreed with those criticisms that he was never really one of them, a gentleman’.
These days they socialise in the world of media moguls & tabloid editors, & despite moats & duck houses, their houses may not quite meet the degree of desirability demanded by the modern royalty of bankers & oligarchs. Our politicians are, at best, mere millionaires, not a single billion between them.
Thorpe also said that Macmillan’s demise marked the moment when it was no longer advisable or profitable for Etonians to wear their old school tie. I wonder if David Cameron even possesses such a thing? There are still 19 other Etonians among the current crop of MPs however.
On balance I suspect that, despite the disagreements over policy, the Conservative Party is really rather pleased to have their first proper gentleman leader since Sir Alec Douglas-Home: ‘The fact that Edward Heath did not hold back in his criticisms of Margaret Thatcher was proof to older Conservatives who often actually agreed with those criticisms that he was never really one of them, a gentleman’.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
One in a hundred million
If you were to type the words downloading my brain into a search engine you might be offered, as I was with Google just now, one hundred and ten million results in 0.29 seconds.
Putting in the quotation marks to limit the search to exactly that phrase would reduce the number of results to a more manageable half million or so.
It makes me wish I had kept a record of the number of results I used to get when Googling my own blog was something I did most days. To the best of my recollection, when I started in late 2006 there was only one exact match other than this blog.
I would not claim any originality for the phrase, although I did not consciously copy it from anywhere. It is in fact a fairly obvious idea in this downloadable age – whether as metaphor or literal conceit – so it is not surprising that it should occur independently to so many.
In those long-ago days of 2006 it was quite easy to find quite commonly-used words as search terms which would produce no results at all. Google would be quite concerned & offer hints as to how you might change things in order to find something – anything.
No thank you, I meant precisely what I said, substitutes not accepted.
In reality the proliferation of downloaded brains must correlate highly with any other measure of the growth in the size of the web over the last five years. This phenomenal growth has the perverse effect of taking away some of the power or usefulness of search engines. No longer can you expect to find easily the most authoritative or original source; better, if you can, to go directly to the website of the originating organisation & hope that they have a user-friendly guide on their site.
Otherwise it teaches us the drawback of unlimited choice, & reminds us once again of the value of editors, indexers & those others who will be our guide as to what is worthwhile or at least meets our own peculiar* needs.
*In the sense of, as the OED explains, ‘Distinguished in nature, character, or attributes from others; unlike others, sui generis; special, remarkable; distinctive.’
Putting in the quotation marks to limit the search to exactly that phrase would reduce the number of results to a more manageable half million or so.
It makes me wish I had kept a record of the number of results I used to get when Googling my own blog was something I did most days. To the best of my recollection, when I started in late 2006 there was only one exact match other than this blog.
I would not claim any originality for the phrase, although I did not consciously copy it from anywhere. It is in fact a fairly obvious idea in this downloadable age – whether as metaphor or literal conceit – so it is not surprising that it should occur independently to so many.
In those long-ago days of 2006 it was quite easy to find quite commonly-used words as search terms which would produce no results at all. Google would be quite concerned & offer hints as to how you might change things in order to find something – anything.
No thank you, I meant precisely what I said, substitutes not accepted.
In reality the proliferation of downloaded brains must correlate highly with any other measure of the growth in the size of the web over the last five years. This phenomenal growth has the perverse effect of taking away some of the power or usefulness of search engines. No longer can you expect to find easily the most authoritative or original source; better, if you can, to go directly to the website of the originating organisation & hope that they have a user-friendly guide on their site.
Otherwise it teaches us the drawback of unlimited choice, & reminds us once again of the value of editors, indexers & those others who will be our guide as to what is worthwhile or at least meets our own peculiar* needs.
*In the sense of, as the OED explains, ‘Distinguished in nature, character, or attributes from others; unlike others, sui generis; special, remarkable; distinctive.’
Related posts
Translating public expenditure
Clear thinking
How very true
Googleisms
Sarah Palin
And one that links to a site which no longer exists:
Well,well
Translating public expenditure
Clear thinking
How very true
Googleisms
Sarah Palin
And one that links to a site which no longer exists:
Well,well
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Brotherhood
In 1961 Harold Macmillan had to move his rising star, but turbulent priest, from the post of Colonial Secretary; Iain Macleod’s attitude towards the pace of decolonisation was anathema to the right wing of the Conservative Party. It may even have been too far to the left for Macmillan himself, with the proposals for the break up of the Central African Federation (the present Malawi, Zambia & Zimbabwe) in particular threatening to turn the wind of change into a damaging gale.
At the Conservative Party Conference, which took place in Brighton shortly after the reshuffle, Macleod made a farewell speech, which, according to DR Thorpe, was seen by his supporters as the greatest of his career. He ended by quoting Robert Burns’ A Man's A Man For A' That:
When Macleod’s successor at the Colonial Office, Reginald Maudling, first met his officials shortly afterwards, he said, “‘I suppose I’m looking at a lot of people who believe in the ‘brotherhood of man’”.
Obviously the idea of brotherhood, particularly between Black & White, between African & European, carried particular potency at the time.
In September 1962, as reported in NY Journal-American, Martin Luther King gave his reassurance that he wanted the white man to be his brother, not his brother-in-law, that civil rights were not the same thing as miscegenation.
No wonder that a quotation from a probably not-very-distinguished British political novel of the same era, in which a rising Conservative star puts a block on his career by remarking to a fellow dinner guest 'I said I wanted the African to be my brother, not my brother in law' sticks so firmly in my memory bank.
At the Conservative Party Conference, which took place in Brighton shortly after the reshuffle, Macleod made a farewell speech, which, according to DR Thorpe, was seen by his supporters as the greatest of his career. He ended by quoting Robert Burns’ A Man's A Man For A' That:
Then let us pray that come it may,
(As come it will for a' that,)
That Sense and Worth, o'er a' the earth,
Shall bear the gree, an' a' that.
For a' that, an' a' that,
It's coming yet for a' that,
That Man to Man, the world o'er,
Shall brothers be for a' that.
When Macleod’s successor at the Colonial Office, Reginald Maudling, first met his officials shortly afterwards, he said, “‘I suppose I’m looking at a lot of people who believe in the ‘brotherhood of man’”.
Obviously the idea of brotherhood, particularly between Black & White, between African & European, carried particular potency at the time.
In September 1962, as reported in NY Journal-American, Martin Luther King gave his reassurance that he wanted the white man to be his brother, not his brother-in-law, that civil rights were not the same thing as miscegenation.
No wonder that a quotation from a probably not-very-distinguished British political novel of the same era, in which a rising Conservative star puts a block on his career by remarking to a fellow dinner guest 'I said I wanted the African to be my brother, not my brother in law' sticks so firmly in my memory bank.
Monday, January 09, 2012
Interview priority
The Times Saturday Review carried an interview by Valerie Grove with Gillian Slovo on the occasion of the publication of her latest novel about General Gordon of Khartoum.
William Stead, the campaigning journalist, is one of the characters in the novel.
This 2012 interview tells us that Stead had published what is ‘widely acknowledged as the first newspaper interview’ with Gordon in the Pall Mall Gazette in 1884.
The word British* should presumably be used to qualify that status as ‘first newspaper interview’, unless the information I gleaned recently in relation to Sir Arthur Sullivan is wrong.
I shall try to remember to check with Manchester Central Library’s superb collection of Victorian periodicals to get the full sense of how this interview was presented to readers, just as soon as the refurbished building is open again. Assuming of course that the periodicals have been thought worth the space they occupy, not thrown away to make room for superior modern digital methods of accessing our history.
* The Spartacus website gives the author Henry M Hyndman as the source for this assertion. Hyndman does acknowledge Stead’s ‘ American instructors’.
William Stead, the campaigning journalist, is one of the characters in the novel.
This 2012 interview tells us that Stead had published what is ‘widely acknowledged as the first newspaper interview’ with Gordon in the Pall Mall Gazette in 1884.
The word British* should presumably be used to qualify that status as ‘first newspaper interview’, unless the information I gleaned recently in relation to Sir Arthur Sullivan is wrong.
I shall try to remember to check with Manchester Central Library’s superb collection of Victorian periodicals to get the full sense of how this interview was presented to readers, just as soon as the refurbished building is open again. Assuming of course that the periodicals have been thought worth the space they occupy, not thrown away to make room for superior modern digital methods of accessing our history.
* The Spartacus website gives the author Henry M Hyndman as the source for this assertion. Hyndman does acknowledge Stead’s ‘ American instructors’.
Sunday, January 08, 2012
More bells
After the friendly bells of Betjeman last week time for something a little darker.
Edgar Allen Poe’s ruminations on bells starts joyfully & optimistically enough with the sleigh bells:
But Poe is not quite so sure about the joy of wedding bells:
His thoughts about funeral bells are every bit as anguished as those of Donne but much darker, with nothing ameliorate the terror.
Edgar Allen Poe’s ruminations on bells starts joyfully & optimistically enough with the sleigh bells:
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.
But Poe is not quite so sure about the joy of wedding bells:
Hear the mellow wedding bells -
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
…
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle - dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!
His thoughts about funeral bells are every bit as anguished as those of Donne but much darker, with nothing ameliorate the terror.
Hear the tolling of the bells -
Iron bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan.
And the people - ah, the people -
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone,
And who, tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone -
They are neither man nor woman -
They are neither brute nor human -
They are Ghouls: -
And their king it is who tolls: -
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A paean from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the paean of the bells!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the paean of the bells: -
Of the bells:
Keeping time, time, time
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the throbbing of the bells -
Of the bells, bells, bells: -
To the sobbing of the bells: -
Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells -
Of the bells, bells, bells -
To the tolling of the bells -
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells, -
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.
Saturday, January 07, 2012
Insulting men
On Friday Woman’s Hour addressed one very puzzling aspect of one of the latest rows about racism in football.
Liverpool’s Luis Suarez, has been handed a heavy penalty for racism against Manchester United's Patrice Evra.
This tale is complicated by the nationality of the players involved & by the fact that there is a long history of rivalry, even enmity & hatred, between the two teams.
We are told that Evra started the spat by saying something ‘disobliging’ about Suarez’ wife/mother/sister. Suarez responded with a volley of the n word in Spanish.
But Evra has received no sanction or punishment at all; his insult apparently breaks no rule of footballers’ code.
Womans Hour sought the advice of experienced commentator Alan Green (a man who can always be relied on for an opinion) and former player Pat Nevin
Pat Nevin’s contribution was illuminating. First that only Latins seem generally to regard the impugning of the honour of a female relative to be an insult to a man, & secondly that most British players would react to such an insult with ‘Don’t be ridiculous’ rather than with fists or verbal retaliation.
I am sure that that is an oversimplification but he has a point. Offence has to be accepted as well as offered.
Football still has to answer the question of why insults to women on the field of play are not considered unacceptable.
Liverpool’s Luis Suarez, has been handed a heavy penalty for racism against Manchester United's Patrice Evra.
This tale is complicated by the nationality of the players involved & by the fact that there is a long history of rivalry, even enmity & hatred, between the two teams.
We are told that Evra started the spat by saying something ‘disobliging’ about Suarez’ wife/mother/sister. Suarez responded with a volley of the n word in Spanish.
But Evra has received no sanction or punishment at all; his insult apparently breaks no rule of footballers’ code.
Womans Hour sought the advice of experienced commentator Alan Green (a man who can always be relied on for an opinion) and former player Pat Nevin
Pat Nevin’s contribution was illuminating. First that only Latins seem generally to regard the impugning of the honour of a female relative to be an insult to a man, & secondly that most British players would react to such an insult with ‘Don’t be ridiculous’ rather than with fists or verbal retaliation.
I am sure that that is an oversimplification but he has a point. Offence has to be accepted as well as offered.
Football still has to answer the question of why insults to women on the field of play are not considered unacceptable.
Friday, January 06, 2012
Still the word
According to a Yougov poll over a million e-readers were sold over Christmas, making them more popular than the iPad for those living outside London, particularly among women & older folk. Most of them were Kindles,so my rcent first sighting of a Kindle on a rural bus was truly representative of a trend.
It is not really surprising that people prefer technology which provides them in a straightforward way with something they already love & understand.
Coincidentally, yesterday The Economist’s Babbage blog reported that, contrary to the received wisdom that we all (not just the young) have developed the attention span of a gnat now that we have the whizzy instant gratification of the web, there is a lot of enthusiasm out there for ‘long reads.’
This week, in a special series on Radio 4, The Written World (not Word, as the Times listings would have it), Melvyn Bragg has been looking at how writing, which, rather like computing, was originally developed for the rather boring functions of accountancy & record keeping, has shaped our intellectual history.
Although he stops short of the new worlds of computer words, concentrating on the book, there is no doubt that, far from damaging the spread of reading, these new electronic forms are bringing literacy & the joy of reading & learning to more people than have ever had that privilege in the past
It is not really surprising that people prefer technology which provides them in a straightforward way with something they already love & understand.
Coincidentally, yesterday The Economist’s Babbage blog reported that, contrary to the received wisdom that we all (not just the young) have developed the attention span of a gnat now that we have the whizzy instant gratification of the web, there is a lot of enthusiasm out there for ‘long reads.’
This week, in a special series on Radio 4, The Written World (not Word, as the Times listings would have it), Melvyn Bragg has been looking at how writing, which, rather like computing, was originally developed for the rather boring functions of accountancy & record keeping, has shaped our intellectual history.
Although he stops short of the new worlds of computer words, concentrating on the book, there is no doubt that, far from damaging the spread of reading, these new electronic forms are bringing literacy & the joy of reading & learning to more people than have ever had that privilege in the past
Thursday, January 05, 2012
Previously in favourite quotations (15)
What does it matter if the mouse is a Unitarian? - Ronald Fisher
Rule one in politics: NEVER INVADE AFGHANISTAN - Harold Macmillan
Childhood memories have no order & no end - Dylan Thomas
The reader of popular scientific books is very likely to think that he understands the science itself, when he merely understands what some writers say about science - Maria Mitchell (1818-89)
Rule one in politics: NEVER INVADE AFGHANISTAN - Harold Macmillan
Childhood memories have no order & no end - Dylan Thomas
The reader of popular scientific books is very likely to think that he understands the science itself, when he merely understands what some writers say about science - Maria Mitchell (1818-89)
Cheaper than anything
A startling report in The Times on New Year’s Eve blamed a steep rise in sexually transmitted infections among teenagers on the fact that alcohol is cheaper than water.
According to the journalists, an ‘unprecedented alliance’ of public health experts, doctors & sexual health advisers, led by the Royal College of Physicians & the British Association of Sexual Health & HIV is demanding that Something Must Be Done. In particular supermarkets should stop ignoring calls for a more responsible approach to pricing.
My suspicions were aroused by the finger pointed at Asda where cider is on sale at 70p a litre, compared with £1.35 for a litre of one brand of sparkling water. This turns out to be based on a quite separate exercise by Times journalists, who presumably failed to notice that Asda sell their own version of fizzy water for less that 10p per litre, & that cola & other ordinary pop type drinks cost nearly £2 in the popular small size bottles.
The report about sexual health & alcohol in fact points out that “Young people are more likely to drink higher strength drinks such as spirits ... and flavoured spirit based ‘alcopops’ ... with girls being more likely to drink spirits and wines than boys” &, while concerned about the affordability of alcohol compared with 1980, makes no specific recommendations on what desirable price relatives might be.
The government might, not altogether wittingly, have already done something to address the problem. According to the medical experts report teenagers with a weekly income of £30 a week are twice as likely as those with £10 a week to drink frequently in public places; £30 a week was the means tested sum given, in the form of Education Maintenance Allowance, to those from poorer backgrounds who stayed on at school or college. This has now been abolished in England.
And the Times journalists should have turned their report into a complaint about the rip off prices of internationally branded non-alcoholic drinks.
According to the journalists, an ‘unprecedented alliance’ of public health experts, doctors & sexual health advisers, led by the Royal College of Physicians & the British Association of Sexual Health & HIV is demanding that Something Must Be Done. In particular supermarkets should stop ignoring calls for a more responsible approach to pricing.
My suspicions were aroused by the finger pointed at Asda where cider is on sale at 70p a litre, compared with £1.35 for a litre of one brand of sparkling water. This turns out to be based on a quite separate exercise by Times journalists, who presumably failed to notice that Asda sell their own version of fizzy water for less that 10p per litre, & that cola & other ordinary pop type drinks cost nearly £2 in the popular small size bottles.
The report about sexual health & alcohol in fact points out that “Young people are more likely to drink higher strength drinks such as spirits ... and flavoured spirit based ‘alcopops’ ... with girls being more likely to drink spirits and wines than boys” &, while concerned about the affordability of alcohol compared with 1980, makes no specific recommendations on what desirable price relatives might be.
The government might, not altogether wittingly, have already done something to address the problem. According to the medical experts report teenagers with a weekly income of £30 a week are twice as likely as those with £10 a week to drink frequently in public places; £30 a week was the means tested sum given, in the form of Education Maintenance Allowance, to those from poorer backgrounds who stayed on at school or college. This has now been abolished in England.
And the Times journalists should have turned their report into a complaint about the rip off prices of internationally branded non-alcoholic drinks.
Wednesday, January 04, 2012
Doctored
An article in the Christmas double edition of The Economist - The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time
– has been attracting a lot of attention.
When I was an undergraduate it was not very common (outside the natural sciences) for anyone to do a PhD as a full time student. Those destined for an academic career could still graduate in July & start work as an assistant lecturer in October (with the prospect of acquiring tenure in two to three years time), something of which I remind myself when we hear complaints of modern students being taught by mere postgrads, not proper professors.
Of course research & publication were required, but formal theses, submitted for examination, were quite rare.
We knew they did things differently in America.
One story which was current in my day illustrates this.
Alan Stuart was assisting Maurice Kendall with the new, revised edition of The Advanced Theory of Statistics, which even today, (having gone through even more revisions & expansions & acquired even more authors) is the bible of the subject.
Kendall was then working at an American university & wanted Stuart to join him. In those more expansive days – no problem, we can find him post.
Except that when he arrived & was discovered to have no PhD – whoops, sorry, our rules don’t allow mere bachelors to hold proper jobs in the academy.
The laid back Brits solved that one easily enough.
The Senate of the University of London simply awarded Stuart a DSc, which was clearly merited by the quality of his work.
I have been unable to trace any mention of this, quite probably apocryphal, or at least embroidered, story on the public web via Google, nor any reference to Kendall and/or Stuart spending any time at an American university during the years of the preparation of the new edition the late 1950s, though it is possible that the obituary in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Vol. 48, No. 2, 1999 may provide some kind of confirmation.
Links
The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time
[PDF]Jeremy Garwood: How did we get into this mess and why has it been continuing for so long?
Kendall's advanced theory of statistics
George Udny Yule
Maurice George Kendall
Kendall's Advanced Theory of Statistics - Kendall's Library of Statistics by Alan Stuart, Keith Ord, Steven Arnold, Stuart Ord, Tony O'Hagan, Steven O'Hagen
Alan Stuart 1922-1998: Basic Ideas of Scientific Sampling
Related post
Exam nerve
The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time
[PDF]Jeremy Garwood: How did we get into this mess and why has it been continuing for so long?
Kendall's advanced theory of statistics
George Udny Yule
Maurice George Kendall
Kendall's Advanced Theory of Statistics - Kendall's Library of Statistics by Alan Stuart, Keith Ord, Steven Arnold, Stuart Ord, Tony O'Hagan, Steven O'Hagen
Alan Stuart 1922-1998: Basic Ideas of Scientific Sampling
Related post
Exam nerve
Tuesday, January 03, 2012
Married politics
DR Thorpe’s biography of Supermac turned out to be an unexpectedly good read.
In truth there were chunks that I skipped over – Suez & Profumo, for example I have had more than enough of. But – unlike so many academic (& political) books these days - it is superbly written.
At 879 pages it is dauntingly long, but the main text takes up a mere 626, the is rest the academic furniture of bibliography, index etc. No less than pages are given over to footnotes which are, in may cases, worth a book of their own, & a tremendous way of deflecting the criticism that an author who cannot bear to leave all these tidbits out is not in control of his material. Of course for this one needs a generously indulgent publisher. One friend was told by her academic press that (for her much more modest effort) she could have a bibliography or an index, but not both.
I also have to own up to the fact that my main motive for borrowing the book from the library was to find out more about his marriage to Lady Dorothy Cavendish, on which the Times had carried an extract.
The book does not actually carry very much more about the details of their relationship after Macmillan refused to give his wife a divorce when she wanted to marry Bob Boothby; instead, on solicitors advice, he offered her the ‘East Wing/ West Wing’ solution to maintain appearances & complaisantly accepted the continuation of the affair.
At least one reviewer complains that Thorpe did not get to the bottom of this behaviour.
It does not surprise me that much.
First Macmillan loved her – as he told others, & her in a touching letter he wrote on her 60th birthday.
Secondly there were four small children involved.
It would also be interesting to know what her family (not exactly unused to irregular liaisons) thought of the prospects of divorce.
My interest in the Cavendish family is now much greater than it was before I read the Diaries of Lady Frederick Cavendish, & I was pleased to see that she gets a small mention here; when Macmillan & Dorothy got engaged, her father (the then Duke of Devonshire) wrote to Lady Frederick (his aunt) to say that they were pleased about it.
What came as more of a surprise to me than the unconventional side of the marriage was the way in which Lady Dorothy did more than merely provide minimal wifely support for the sake of appearances. She worked very hard & even nursed his Stockton constituency with assiduity while Macmillan was away in North Africa during WWII.
But then that sort of activity was probably bred into Cavendish women.
In truth there were chunks that I skipped over – Suez & Profumo, for example I have had more than enough of. But – unlike so many academic (& political) books these days - it is superbly written.
At 879 pages it is dauntingly long, but the main text takes up a mere 626, the is rest the academic furniture of bibliography, index etc. No less than pages are given over to footnotes which are, in may cases, worth a book of their own, & a tremendous way of deflecting the criticism that an author who cannot bear to leave all these tidbits out is not in control of his material. Of course for this one needs a generously indulgent publisher. One friend was told by her academic press that (for her much more modest effort) she could have a bibliography or an index, but not both.
I also have to own up to the fact that my main motive for borrowing the book from the library was to find out more about his marriage to Lady Dorothy Cavendish, on which the Times had carried an extract.
The book does not actually carry very much more about the details of their relationship after Macmillan refused to give his wife a divorce when she wanted to marry Bob Boothby; instead, on solicitors advice, he offered her the ‘East Wing/ West Wing’ solution to maintain appearances & complaisantly accepted the continuation of the affair.
At least one reviewer complains that Thorpe did not get to the bottom of this behaviour.
It does not surprise me that much.
First Macmillan loved her – as he told others, & her in a touching letter he wrote on her 60th birthday.
Secondly there were four small children involved.
It would also be interesting to know what her family (not exactly unused to irregular liaisons) thought of the prospects of divorce.
My interest in the Cavendish family is now much greater than it was before I read the Diaries of Lady Frederick Cavendish, & I was pleased to see that she gets a small mention here; when Macmillan & Dorothy got engaged, her father (the then Duke of Devonshire) wrote to Lady Frederick (his aunt) to say that they were pleased about it.
What came as more of a surprise to me than the unconventional side of the marriage was the way in which Lady Dorothy did more than merely provide minimal wifely support for the sake of appearances. She worked very hard & even nursed his Stockton constituency with assiduity while Macmillan was away in North Africa during WWII.
But then that sort of activity was probably bred into Cavendish women.
Monday, January 02, 2012
Reading on the bus
One consequence of the introduction of free bus passes for pensioners is an increase in the number of people I see reading on the bus – reading books, (mainly novels), which round here is a mainly female occupation & one that is more common in older than younger women. Most other people, if they read at all, have their eyes fixed firmly on a tiny screen.
But this week I have spotted my first Kindle (or similar) on the bus, in the hands of a young woman.
If I see her often enough I may get cheeky enough to ask if I can take a look to see if it is legible to my eyes in the winter evening gloom.
But this week I have spotted my first Kindle (or similar) on the bus, in the hands of a young woman.
If I see her often enough I may get cheeky enough to ask if I can take a look to see if it is legible to my eyes in the winter evening gloom.
Related posts
Keep your nose out of it
Freedom calls
Keep your nose out of it
Freedom calls
Sunday, January 01, 2012
Mathematic bells
This characeristaclly rhythmic poem by John Betjeman was included in Radio 3's Christmas Day edition of Words & Music.
Quite apart from its other qualities it earns a place in my haphazard anthology of poems which use the words 'mathematics' or 'statistics'.
Bristol
Green upon the flooded Avon shone the after-storm-wet-sky
Quick the struggling withy branches let the leaves of autumn fly
And a star shone over Bristol, wonderfully far and high.
Ringers in an oil-lit belfry - Bitton? Kelston? who shall say? -
Smoothly practicing a plain course, caverned out the dying day
As their melancholy music flooded up and ebbed away,
Then all Somerset was around me and I saw the clippers ride,
High above the moonlit houses, triple-masted on the tide,
By the tall embattled church-towers of Bristol waterside.
And an undersong to branches dripping into pools and wells
Out of multitudes of elm trees over leagues of hill and dells
Was the mathematic pattern of a plain course on the bells.
Quite apart from its other qualities it earns a place in my haphazard anthology of poems which use the words 'mathematics' or 'statistics'.
Bristol
Green upon the flooded Avon shone the after-storm-wet-sky
Quick the struggling withy branches let the leaves of autumn fly
And a star shone over Bristol, wonderfully far and high.
Ringers in an oil-lit belfry - Bitton? Kelston? who shall say? -
Smoothly practicing a plain course, caverned out the dying day
As their melancholy music flooded up and ebbed away,
Then all Somerset was around me and I saw the clippers ride,
High above the moonlit houses, triple-masted on the tide,
By the tall embattled church-towers of Bristol waterside.
And an undersong to branches dripping into pools and wells
Out of multitudes of elm trees over leagues of hill and dells
Was the mathematic pattern of a plain course on the bells.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)