I cannot now remember when it was that I first noticed that something had changed about the sound of live broadcasts from the House of Commons. They seem to have installed new microphones in the Chamber – perhaps as part of the arrangements for publishing Hansard much more quickly on line. So far I have not had any success in finding the details of the changes via Google.
The unfortunate effect – at least via my low-tech old fashioned radios - is that these introduce a distinct hollowness & echo to the broadcast sound. Ed Milliband, especially, suffers from this effect, which makes him lose authority.
At first I thought it might have something to do with where the mics are sited, rather than something to do with the quality of his voice.
But - & it really does pain me to have to say this – it may have to do with register, pitch or timbre. Because it is hard on women too.
During Monday's session on High Speed Rail both Maria Eagle & Cheryl Gillan just sounded querulous & shrill – not how they sound at all outside the Chamber, & much of this was due to the echo & greater clarity in the higher registers.
Links
High Speed Rail: House of Commons 28 January 2013
[PDF]The sound of democracy
HOUSE OF COMMONS PROCEEDINGS (SOUND BROADCASTING EXPERIMENT) 11 December 1967
[PDF] WHAT MAKES A FEMALE VOICE ATTRACTIVE?
Voters prefer candidates with a deeper voice, says study
BBC Radio 4: Vox project
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Kalibration
All the talk about ‘traces’ of horse DNA in beefburgers reminded me of the puzzle of Kaliber.
This is a brand of ‘alcohol-free’ lager (made by Guinness) which, unlike many similar products, actually has an acceptable taste. But I was puzzled about why it could be bought only from licensed premises.
I was told that it was because it started out as normal strength lager, from which the alcohol was then removed. But the process meant that, by law, it had to be treated the same as other ‘brewed’ liquors.
The label declared the alcohol content to be less than 0.05 per cent. What continued to puzzle me however was that a version of shandy – popular from my childhood days & still then widely available, though it seems now to have disappeared from the supermarkets - contained more alcohol but was sold alongside cola & other soft drinks, with no licensing restrictions at all.
A toxicologist friend who worked in the area of food safety told me that the declared alcohol content meant that it was below the limit of detection but that, in order to comply with the relevant regulations, they had allowed for the possibility that there might be traces left over from the production process.
But then why, a few years later, was Billy Connolly allowed to advertise it on the telly with the assurance that it contained absolutely no alcohol at all?
Link
YouTube: Kaliber Ad
This is a brand of ‘alcohol-free’ lager (made by Guinness) which, unlike many similar products, actually has an acceptable taste. But I was puzzled about why it could be bought only from licensed premises.
I was told that it was because it started out as normal strength lager, from which the alcohol was then removed. But the process meant that, by law, it had to be treated the same as other ‘brewed’ liquors.
The label declared the alcohol content to be less than 0.05 per cent. What continued to puzzle me however was that a version of shandy – popular from my childhood days & still then widely available, though it seems now to have disappeared from the supermarkets - contained more alcohol but was sold alongside cola & other soft drinks, with no licensing restrictions at all.
A toxicologist friend who worked in the area of food safety told me that the declared alcohol content meant that it was below the limit of detection but that, in order to comply with the relevant regulations, they had allowed for the possibility that there might be traces left over from the production process.
But then why, a few years later, was Billy Connolly allowed to advertise it on the telly with the assurance that it contained absolutely no alcohol at all?
Link
YouTube: Kaliber Ad
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Snow adventure
On Tuesday last week any self-congratulatory tendencies on my part for venturing out in the snow were put to shame by a gentleman I met while waiting for the bus into town.
White haired & well past retirement age he told of how he had just walked from the Cat & Fiddle, on a day when, although the sky was clear & the sun poked through occasionally, the snow still lay thick & frozen as soon as you got away from gritted roads.
Having rejected two of the more challenging routes – one because there were no footprints visible anywhere near the track & the other because he decided the glaring whiteness made it impossible to distinguish between what were merely snow-covered natural hummocks and dangerously deep drifts, he settled for the relatively safe & travelled tracks alongside the reservoirs. It had taken him just over three hours to cover a distance of about 5 miles, (on the level, as the crow flies) & felt it a job well done in overcoming the recent excesses.
Furthermore, he said, he intended to take the bus only as far as Disley, then, after a cup of tea & a sandwich, walk the remaining three miles home through Lyme Park.
He carried neither back pack nor stick – useless in deep snow he claimed - though he clearly knew the ground well & carried a satnav. What fascinated me - & made me deeply envious – was that, although well-booted & jacketed, he wore no gloves, & yet his hands looked rosy & warm.
Link
Derbyshire webcams snow watch
Endangered hedgehog
According to a report in today’s Times, hedgehogs are in danger of becoming extinct. The British population has fallen from (perhaps) 30 million in the 1950s to just 1½ million in 1995 & maybe only half that number today, says the People's trust for Endangered Species.
Well maybe, even probably, but I would be more impressed by the work if the trend graphs were put on to a comparable scale.
Links
[PDF]The state of Britain’s hedgehogs 2011
[PDF] Urban mammals
hedgehog loss comparable to tigers
Related post
Cold weather kindness
Well maybe, even probably, but I would be more impressed by the work if the trend graphs were put on to a comparable scale.
Links
[PDF]The state of Britain’s hedgehogs 2011
[PDF] Urban mammals
hedgehog loss comparable to tigers
Related post
Cold weather kindness
Monday, January 28, 2013
Snow stories
The Met Office were warning of more heavy snow on Friday. As usual it was hard to know whether these warnings applied to our part of the country, but local radio seemed confident that substantial falls would be confined to the high ground, so I set off out with no qualms about being able to get back home in the evening.
My confidence seemed justified, despite the bitterly cold wind that was blowing intermittently all afternoon & a few small but wet flurries as darkness fell (at least the days are getting noticeably longer now). And since it was raining when I came out of Sainsbury’s I naturally assumed the danger of snow had passed.
So it was a surprise when I looked up as we got to the village to see snow falling & everything blanketed with white – the road had obviously not been gritted.
Would the bus even be able to get up the hill?
No problem – these modern buses don’t struggle like the old ones – the lower centre of gravity must help with the traction.
I got off into a mini blizzard, the snow stinging my face when it hit but no point even trying to open an umbrella in that wind. Half way down our hill I passed a couple coming up, determined on their night out (not youngsters but somewhere in their middling years), their bootprints coming up & mine going down the only sign of life outside. With no gritting all surfaces were covered with a good inch of wet but soft snow which is easy enough to walk on.
It came as a pleasant surprise to find that my jacket (just the down one, I hadn’t bothered with the heavy duty rain jacket) was not wet through, though whatever it was that fell off when I shook the big red woollen scarf which had been wrapped round my head & neck skittered & scattered over the floor with a sound like grains of rice or small beads. I was even more astounded to find that the bit of my hair that hangs down below the scarf was solid with ice.
A hearty supper of proper pork sausages from a local butcher, roast parsnips & a mound of steamed courgette, leek & broccoli, followed by ginger sponge pudding, swept away even the memory of cold.
The snow continued to fall in bursts throughout the evening but I was comforted to see, when I looked through the kitchen window, that although the top of the leylandii hedge just over the back wall was wearing a thick white blanket on its flat top, it had not settled at all on the top of the hedge on the far side of the field; it had not been that one’s turn to be trimmed this autumn, so its more raggedy top provided no similarly hospitable bed. There seemed no threat that we would wake up in the morning to find ourselves unable to move outside.
We got a bit anxious a few years ago when there was a campaign to introduce draconian controls on the use of leylandii – well maintained, they provide invaluable protection from westerly winds, rain & snow. And noise too; the local factory, which provides much needed employment, is also surrounded by a well maintained hedge.
By Saturday midday the road surfaces were clear, though the pavements were still thickly covered & children were sledging boisterously & happily in the fields. As I stood at the bus stop I witnessed the snow suddenly slip & slide off the roofs & windscreens of cars parked nearby – a small reminder of how sudden & frightening such falls can be, a lesson in the need to take care when passing near drifts on the slopes of the hills.
Saturday’s weather was cold but otherwise uneventful, until it began to rain quite heavily in the evening. There were even a couple of prolonged rolls of faraway sounding thunder later on. And so we once more have warnings of floods over much of the country. Earlier in the week local radio told us of a team from the council’s environment department who are out every morning at 9am measuring the depth & degree of wetness of the snow lying over the area, so that floods can be more accurately predicted.
At least we are learning to be better prepared for whatever the weather may throw at us next.
My confidence seemed justified, despite the bitterly cold wind that was blowing intermittently all afternoon & a few small but wet flurries as darkness fell (at least the days are getting noticeably longer now). And since it was raining when I came out of Sainsbury’s I naturally assumed the danger of snow had passed.
So it was a surprise when I looked up as we got to the village to see snow falling & everything blanketed with white – the road had obviously not been gritted.
Would the bus even be able to get up the hill?
No problem – these modern buses don’t struggle like the old ones – the lower centre of gravity must help with the traction.
I got off into a mini blizzard, the snow stinging my face when it hit but no point even trying to open an umbrella in that wind. Half way down our hill I passed a couple coming up, determined on their night out (not youngsters but somewhere in their middling years), their bootprints coming up & mine going down the only sign of life outside. With no gritting all surfaces were covered with a good inch of wet but soft snow which is easy enough to walk on.
It came as a pleasant surprise to find that my jacket (just the down one, I hadn’t bothered with the heavy duty rain jacket) was not wet through, though whatever it was that fell off when I shook the big red woollen scarf which had been wrapped round my head & neck skittered & scattered over the floor with a sound like grains of rice or small beads. I was even more astounded to find that the bit of my hair that hangs down below the scarf was solid with ice.
A hearty supper of proper pork sausages from a local butcher, roast parsnips & a mound of steamed courgette, leek & broccoli, followed by ginger sponge pudding, swept away even the memory of cold.
The snow continued to fall in bursts throughout the evening but I was comforted to see, when I looked through the kitchen window, that although the top of the leylandii hedge just over the back wall was wearing a thick white blanket on its flat top, it had not settled at all on the top of the hedge on the far side of the field; it had not been that one’s turn to be trimmed this autumn, so its more raggedy top provided no similarly hospitable bed. There seemed no threat that we would wake up in the morning to find ourselves unable to move outside.
We got a bit anxious a few years ago when there was a campaign to introduce draconian controls on the use of leylandii – well maintained, they provide invaluable protection from westerly winds, rain & snow. And noise too; the local factory, which provides much needed employment, is also surrounded by a well maintained hedge.
By Saturday midday the road surfaces were clear, though the pavements were still thickly covered & children were sledging boisterously & happily in the fields. As I stood at the bus stop I witnessed the snow suddenly slip & slide off the roofs & windscreens of cars parked nearby – a small reminder of how sudden & frightening such falls can be, a lesson in the need to take care when passing near drifts on the slopes of the hills.
Saturday’s weather was cold but otherwise uneventful, until it began to rain quite heavily in the evening. There were even a couple of prolonged rolls of faraway sounding thunder later on. And so we once more have warnings of floods over much of the country. Earlier in the week local radio told us of a team from the council’s environment department who are out every morning at 9am measuring the depth & degree of wetness of the snow lying over the area, so that floods can be more accurately predicted.
At least we are learning to be better prepared for whatever the weather may throw at us next.
Best horsemeat joke
A piece in Friday’s Times City Diary by Andrew Clark brought a small warm glow amidst the gloom.
All the 16 HMV shops in Ireland have been closed down by the administrators – I imagine this loss might be felt even more keenly over there because of the way that music of all sorts still plays such an important part in Irish culture – one reason I like listening to RTE Radio 1 is the variety of music I get to hear, just as part of the normal run of programmes.
But some Irish businesses have offered to accept otherwise worthless HMV gift vouchers in exchange for a treat such as lunch in a pub, a bet at the bookies or a blow dry at the hairdressers.
And the best horsemeat joke so far: a suggestion that Tesco should accept them too – as Horse Meat Vouchers.
Links
HMV Group
HMV: What does its receivership mean for Irish music and businesses?
Related post
Just say neigh
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Secret ministry
from Frost at Midnight
The Frost performs its secret ministry,
Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry
Came loud—and hark, again! loud as before.
The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,
Have left me to that solitude, which suits
Abstruser musings: save that at my side
My cradled infant slumbers peacefully ...
Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side,
Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm,
Fill up the intersperséd vacancies
And momentary pauses of the thought!
My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart
With tender gladness, thus to look at thee,
And think that thou shalt learn far other lore,
And in far other scenes! For I was reared
In the great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim,
And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars.
But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze
By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags
Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds,
Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores
And mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hear
The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible
Of that eternal language, which thy God
Utters, who from eternity doth teach
Himself in all, and all things in himself.
Great universal Teacher! he shall mould
Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask.
Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
Whether the summer clothe the general earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch
Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall
Heard only in the trances of the blast,
Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.
LinksNether Stowey
Coleridge Cottage
Related post
Not knowing what I love
The Frost performs its secret ministry,
Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry
Came loud—and hark, again! loud as before.
The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,
Have left me to that solitude, which suits
Abstruser musings: save that at my side
My cradled infant slumbers peacefully ...
Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side,
Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm,
Fill up the intersperséd vacancies
And momentary pauses of the thought!
My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart
With tender gladness, thus to look at thee,
And think that thou shalt learn far other lore,
And in far other scenes! For I was reared
In the great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim,
And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars.
But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze
By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags
Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds,
Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores
And mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hear
The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible
Of that eternal language, which thy God
Utters, who from eternity doth teach
Himself in all, and all things in himself.
Great universal Teacher! he shall mould
Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask.
Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
Whether the summer clothe the general earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch
Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall
Heard only in the trances of the blast,
Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
LinksNether Stowey
Coleridge Cottage
Related post
Not knowing what I love
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Idle hands
It came as a bit of a surprise to read last week that the word ‘unemployment’ dates back (in English – French may be different) only to 1888, when it was used in an article in the American journal, Science. The OED notes that it has been in common use only since about 1895. Before that time there was simply a choice between work & pauperism.
By the first decade of the C20th the scourge of unemployment was a topic of regular discussion in intellectual periodicals such as Contemporary Review. It was a ‘thing’ (like justice or security), with which society & government had a responsibility to deal, & not just the fault of the feckless. (They however, continued to figure in the arguments – indeed the OED gives us a quotation from the St James’s Gazette, in the year before the first recorded appearance of Unemployment, referring to ‘Persons who are unemployed because they are unemployable’.)
By the middle of the following century, in 1948, the United Nations recognised that “Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment”
And the idea & scope of a contract of employment continues to grow – with its guarantees of protection from unfair dismissal, harassment & discrimination, & guarantees of equal pay, holidays & respect for family commitments.
At the same time however, we are seeing a growing tendency for the young – in particular – to be expected to work without pay, in the interests of gaining relevant experience & networking opportunities.
A recent article on the Guardian Datablog attempted to disentangle the numbers of those working without pay from the total numbers of ‘employees in employment’. The fact that job numbers are growing while the economy is stalling is causing much scratching of heads.
This revelation about the word unemployment makes me want to revisit the contemporary sources from the earlier C19th : what words were used, for example, to describe the plight of the ‘operatives’ who were laid off during the Cotton Famine. Or, indeed by the Chartists. And did Tawney use the word ‘unemployment’ in his Commonplace Book.
I may yet be a convert to the linguistic turn
Links
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Linguistic Turn
Employment figures: how the unpaid get counted
Related posts
Statistics leading to philosophy
RH Tawney’s Commonplace Book
By the first decade of the C20th the scourge of unemployment was a topic of regular discussion in intellectual periodicals such as Contemporary Review. It was a ‘thing’ (like justice or security), with which society & government had a responsibility to deal, & not just the fault of the feckless. (They however, continued to figure in the arguments – indeed the OED gives us a quotation from the St James’s Gazette, in the year before the first recorded appearance of Unemployment, referring to ‘Persons who are unemployed because they are unemployable’.)
By the middle of the following century, in 1948, the United Nations recognised that “Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment”
And the idea & scope of a contract of employment continues to grow – with its guarantees of protection from unfair dismissal, harassment & discrimination, & guarantees of equal pay, holidays & respect for family commitments.
At the same time however, we are seeing a growing tendency for the young – in particular – to be expected to work without pay, in the interests of gaining relevant experience & networking opportunities.
A recent article on the Guardian Datablog attempted to disentangle the numbers of those working without pay from the total numbers of ‘employees in employment’. The fact that job numbers are growing while the economy is stalling is causing much scratching of heads.
This revelation about the word unemployment makes me want to revisit the contemporary sources from the earlier C19th : what words were used, for example, to describe the plight of the ‘operatives’ who were laid off during the Cotton Famine. Or, indeed by the Chartists. And did Tawney use the word ‘unemployment’ in his Commonplace Book.
I may yet be a convert to the linguistic turn
Links
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Linguistic Turn
Employment figures: how the unpaid get counted
Related posts
Statistics leading to philosophy
RH Tawney’s Commonplace Book
Friday, January 25, 2013
Tickled my fancy
Recent links I liked:
Comparing online and in-class outcomes & the challenges of designing controlled trials in the field of education
All hands dimorphic: Gnomeo and Juliet edition A sexist handism thing.
The vandals are in their bedrooms Committing anti-social acts on-line?
The lordly rifle range mystery
Palliative care: knowing when not to act
XKCD debugger Ending with a smile
Comparing online and in-class outcomes & the challenges of designing controlled trials in the field of education
All hands dimorphic: Gnomeo and Juliet edition A sexist handism thing.
The vandals are in their bedrooms Committing anti-social acts on-line?
The lordly rifle range mystery
Palliative care: knowing when not to act
XKCD debugger Ending with a smile
Thursday, January 24, 2013
That feeling of being watched
In 1884 (the year of Gordon of Khartoum, another extension of the franchise to working class men & continuing tensions over Irish Home Rule) Eddie Hamilton, one of Gladstone’s Private Secretaries, reminded the prime minister, once again, that his nocturnal activities, whereby he attempted to persuade prostitutes to seek a better way of life, made him, & his political programme, vulnerable. For there were many ‘malicious & unscrupulous persons who would give large sums of money’ to persuade his police bodyguards to incriminate him. ‘There is no saying to what account these persons might or might not turn such information.’
In the wake of all our recent scandals over the behaviour of press & police that doesn’t come as too much of a surprise, though I was slightly taken aback to realise that Gladstone had full-time police bodyguards – an idea such as this had been rejected in earlier years, even during the Fenian panics of the late 1860s.
But the effects of Phoenix Park in 1882 must have cast a much longer shadow. Has there ever been a period since when prime ministers have not had such close protection?
I was checking the background of Eddie Hamilton in the Dictionary of National Biography, when the following quote raised a smile:
Hamilton was aware that the qualities that suited him so well to be a private secretary and Treasury official—diligence, accuracy, discretion, tact, and above all an ability to write clear summaries of complex questions—did not include unusual powers of intellect.Link
Police officer found guilty of trying to sell information to News of the World
Related post
Prime ministerial security
The world turns
… in a world … where new university students raised on laptops struggle to write by pen for 3 hours in an exam hall; where postal services flounder for want of handwritten letters; where we will soon once again have to pay monks to write letters for us when needed …
Times 3rd leader January 2013
Related posts
A record of things that hath been
The human continuum of space & time
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
That had bin Supererogation
I was woken at about 5:15 this morning by what I groggily thought was the sound of the bin wagon – not right outside but somewhere close by, though sound travels especially well in air which is frozen.
I had drifted back to sleep before I could be sure, but the men had definitely been & gone by 7:15 when I was properly awake & heard a neighbour taking their bin back inside.
I had checked the council’s website on Monday to find that the bin men were not working at all that day but hoped to start again on Tuesday; we should therefore put out our bins as usual, although they would prioritise those uncollected from Monday. They were still there when I got home in the evening.
But to start before the crack of dawn in this way counts as really great service. I hope this is not achieved at the bin men’s expense – eg by not paying them for uncollected bins, even when circumstances are beyond their control.
Fingering the ring
Sham wedding ring exposed by familiar faces in photos
So read the headline in The Times.
You had to read the article to understand that the ring in question was not the familiar band of gold but a gang who organised ‘bogus weddings’ to brides from Eastern Europe for men who hoped thereby to claim the right to live in this country under the EU open borders laws
So read the headline in The Times.
You had to read the article to understand that the ring in question was not the familiar band of gold but a gang who organised ‘bogus weddings’ to brides from Eastern Europe for men who hoped thereby to claim the right to live in this country under the EU open borders laws
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Gussie Moran
I can remember all the fuss about the way she dressed at Wimbledon, which ‘introduced vulgarity & sin into tennis’ according to the Committee of the All England Lawn Tennis Club, which knows about such things.
Looked at through eyes which are now more than 60 years older she just looks like a normal healthy young girl who liked to wear pretty – but demure - dresses.
Although I can also remember that the frilly knickers she wore one time reminded me horribly of the plastic-lined panties you put over the towelling nappies of your baby daughter.
Fovent accessories
One retailer who did well over Christmas was the upmarket purveyor of mens shoes & accessories, Oliver Sweeney.
I was intrigued to see that, just like Primark, they are doing well out of gloves which can be used with touch screens – an accessory we all need badly in this weather.
Sweeney’s however will cost you about 100 times as much as Primark’s humble offering, & yet they are doing so well that they are not included in the sale.
Links
Oliver Sweeney
Amery Capital Ltd
Related post
Things you didn't know you need
Monday, January 21, 2013
Outlines of trees
It snowed again overnight – only an inch or two; we have had it easy compared to those living further south, east or far to the north.
Nor is it the same sort of snow we have had for the past few bad winters. Rather than frozen hard it is powdery, soft, & gleaming white. And the temperature has never dropped much below zero, even over night, so it has not turned to ice which can be so ttreacherous underfoot.
This morning it must have been a couple of degrees above zero because even just the light traffic in the lane outside the house had been enough to melt the snow away to leave the surface clear.
It stayed deep on the pavements however, though nice & easy to walk on – until I got to the part where some idiot had cleared the snow from the access to their double driveway, just by pushing the snow to the sides & leaving it piled in two ridges all the way across to the kerb. Pedestrians had no alternative but to step out into the road to navigate their way around these.
Another problem is a kind of snow blindness caused by the intense whiteness. Thankfully all this raising & lowering of kerb edges in the name of disabled access has another side benefit – you know you can cross at one of those points without the risk of turning your ankle as you put it down hard on the hidden edge of the curb.
And the world looks beautiful, with the tree branches all silhouetted in white.
Spuugh-slang
While listening to the radio this morning I found myself wondering what COBRA stands for. I think we are expected to be reassured by the news that COBRA is sitting – often chaired by the prime minister - whenever there is an emergency in progress.
How’s about Cabinet Operations Before Real Armageddon?
Links
Cobra: The UK's emergencies team
The Home Office's Response to Terrorist Attacks
Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Houghmagandie
I once witnessed a group of young(ish), educated, middle class women in the Caribbean of the 1960s (than whom there was no more tightly sheltered & protected group at that time), persuaded to mark the acquisition by one of their number of a new car by dancing round it, libation in hand, singing that old Scottish celebratory incantation, An' hey for houghmagandie
Gie The Lass Her Fairing
O gie the lass her fairing, lad,
O gie the lass her fairin',
An' something else she'll gie to you,
That's waly worth the wearin';
Syne coup her o'er amang the creels,
When ye hae taen your brandy,
The mair she bangs the less she squeels,
An' hey for houghmagandie.
Then gie the lass a fairin' lad,
O gie the lass her fairin',
An' sh'ell gie you a hairy thing,
An' of it be na sparin';
But coup her o'er amang the creels,
An' bar the door wi' baith your heels,
The mair she gets the less she squeels;
An' hey for houghmagandie.
Robert Burns
Links
Barnes & Noble: Houghmagandie
Words, Words, Words: Houghmagandie, Knockers, Trolleys and Others by Diarmaid O'Muirithe
Saturday, January 19, 2013
'Til trouble troubles you
Lord Pannick used his column in Thursday’s Times to make the case for an amendment to the Electoral Registration & Administration Bill, which he tabled in the House of Lords & which would make clear the right of every citizen to vote provided they present themselves to the polling station by 10pm. Nobody should be denied that right – as happened to some at the last general election - because there is no time to process them before the shutters must come down.
The amendment read that:
Once a bureaucrat, always a bureaucrat, & immediately I read of that ‘need to define’ my brain flew to all the ways in which advantage could be taken of a relaxed rule by those who have a vested interest in playing the game to gain maximum advantage for their own side – something far from unknown when power is the prize.
Lord Pannick responded immediately in the House of Lords by saying that he was very doubtful that a queue needs to be defined; a polling officer would know a queue when he or she saw one. In his newspaper column he said that any concerns that some might set out to cause problems were unrealistic & could in any case be solved by the application of ‘common sense’ by the polling officer.
I find it surprising that such an experienced lawyer could – by implication – advise public officials to proceed on the basis of their own common sense when a fundamental principle – the right to vote in a democracy- is at stake & should not be interfered with in any way by a nitpicking application of rules. Or that 'know it when you see it' is an adequate definition of anything.
It is probably true that gaming the rules to cause problems for election officials would be rare – especially in these days when political parties find it difficult to muster enough helpers to mobilise votes in every constituency. So perhaps the hard way is the best way to learn – write laws that are intended to be used by well-intentioned people full of common sense & amend them only when your expectations are in turn disappointed.
Link
Amendment 53 Moved by Lord Pannick
Related posts
Voting hours
Crime & government
We the people
England’s most marginal constituency
Election fixes
The amendment read that:
(7) A voter who is in the polling station or in a queue outside the polling station for the purpose of voting at the time specified for the close of the poll shall be entitled to apply for a ballot paper under sub-paragraph 1 above and a ballot paper shall be delivered and the voter entitled to vote in accordance with this paragraph.Those who supported the amendment were disappointed that the government minister who responded spoke of difficulties, the need to consider unintended consequences & the need to define the word ‘queue’.
Once a bureaucrat, always a bureaucrat, & immediately I read of that ‘need to define’ my brain flew to all the ways in which advantage could be taken of a relaxed rule by those who have a vested interest in playing the game to gain maximum advantage for their own side – something far from unknown when power is the prize.
Lord Pannick responded immediately in the House of Lords by saying that he was very doubtful that a queue needs to be defined; a polling officer would know a queue when he or she saw one. In his newspaper column he said that any concerns that some might set out to cause problems were unrealistic & could in any case be solved by the application of ‘common sense’ by the polling officer.
I find it surprising that such an experienced lawyer could – by implication – advise public officials to proceed on the basis of their own common sense when a fundamental principle – the right to vote in a democracy- is at stake & should not be interfered with in any way by a nitpicking application of rules. Or that 'know it when you see it' is an adequate definition of anything.
It is probably true that gaming the rules to cause problems for election officials would be rare – especially in these days when political parties find it difficult to muster enough helpers to mobilise votes in every constituency. So perhaps the hard way is the best way to learn – write laws that are intended to be used by well-intentioned people full of common sense & amend them only when your expectations are in turn disappointed.
Link
Amendment 53 Moved by Lord Pannick
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