Management 101?

The Terminal 5 débâcle is a classic example of the well-known dangers of the "crash, bang, wallop" approach to introducing new systems. I am surprised that BA - or whoever was responsible for the decision - made their minds up to go down this line, as they must have realised the very real potential for disaster. The better approach would have been to start by handling just a small percentage of full capacity, and allow the systems to bed in, before slowly increasing to maximum running. The problems would still have arisen, but would have been more controllable and less severe.

Clear vision?

Media getting in a tizz about the fact that some £700,000 has been spent on improvements to the Speaker's official residence - this is seen as evidence of his profligacy. It's somewhat reminiscent of the furore caused by the then Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine, spending over £50,000 on handmade flock wallpaper for his official apartments. What seems to go unnoticed is the word "official" in both those cases. Whatever one may think of the people involved, the premises in both cases belong to the office and not the person - so the question to be asked is whether the money spent is appropriate given the status of the office. Whether or not you like the people involved is neither here nor there.

Lunch-time lock-ins.

According to the news, schools are being encouraged to keep their pupils in at lunchtime to avoid them going down the local burger-bar or chip-shop. Apparently some schools are already doing this. My question - to which as yet I have found no definitive answer - is, can they legally do this? Doesn't this amount to false imprisonment? If I want my son/daughter to come home for lunch, has the school the legal authority to stop them? What this seems to come down to is, just what constitutes the "school-day" - does it include the lunch-break? A quick Google suggests that different schools have different rules - some specify that you must go home for lunch (presumably these are those with no canteen facilities), and the vast majority seem to make it an option. Anybody know just what the legal position is?

Tata for now...

So Ford have finally sold Jaguar and Land Rover to the Indian firm Tata. Although there have been some assurances that in the short to medium term production will remain in this country, I think most people expect this to be the beginning of the end of any remaining pretence of a British car industry. The writing's been on the wall for decades now, and the seeds of self-destruction were sown back in the 70's by "Red Robbo" and his mates - although to be fair, there were inherent problems well before that. Sad - particularly here in the West Mids - but inevitable, I fear.

Let's be quite clear...

...an MP is elected to represent their constituents, and to act in their best interests. When performing in their official capacity therefore, an MP's personal views and beliefs are irrelevant, except in so far as they may represent the views and beliefs of their constituents. The current situation concerning the proposed embryo research legislation, where some MPs have indicated their intention to vote against the Bill purely on religious or moral grounds is totally unacceptable. An MP who says "I personally do not agree with this, therefore I will not vote for it" is simply not doing his or her job properly.

Respect.

Ronnie Corbett was on TV the other night reminiscing about his other half - Ronnie Barker. Something I had not known until then was that when the memorial service for Barker was held at Westminster Abbey, the Dean allowed the procession into the Abbey to be led by four candles, instead of the traditional two. How great was that?? God bless him!!

Monty Hall.

This is a continuation of the previous posts under this title.

Just what do we mean when we say that picking Door C gives you a two-in-three chance of winning the car? After all, the car is either behind Door C or it isn't. Well, what it means is that if you were to play this game over and over again, always using the strategy of swopping doors, you would win the car on average about two times in every three. It in no way means that you will win the car on this particular occasion - just that it's twice as likely as not that you will. So now consider Contestant II. They have different (that is to say less) information than you and as far as they are concerned the car is just as likely to be behind one door as the other. They will therefore pick a door at random, and again, if they played the game over and over again using that stategy, they would pick the right door about half of the time. So you see it's a bit like a self-fulfilling prophesy - your assessment of the probabilities governs your strategy, and your strategy in turn produces results which reflect your assessment. We could imagine another contestant - Contestant III - who knows all about the game and is therefore going to use the swopping-doors strategy, and who originally picked Door C and has now swopped to Door A. They, like you, have a two-thirds chance of winning the car, and yet clearly one of you is going to lose. The only way this can only be explained is that, playing the game over and over, you would both win the car about two times in three. This of course supposes that you each make your original choice of door independently, and that if you both pick the correct door, you both win a car. More to come...

Book Post

(see post dated 18/11/06)

The latest ten -

Raymond Khoury - The Last Templar - 8
Mark Burnell - Chameleon - 7
James Patterson with Maxine Paetro - 4th of July - 7
David Morrell - Scavenger - 8
Karin Slaughter - Faithless - 7
Robert B. Parker - Blue Screen - 8.5
M. J. Trow - Maxwell's Grave - 7.5
David Hewson - The Villa of Mysteries - 7
James Patterson with Andrew Gross - 2nd Chance - 8
John Sandford - Dead Watch - 8

Golden numbers and all that jazz.

I'm sure somebody once said that anyone who claimed to understand quantum physics almost certainly didn't. Much the same thing, it seem to me, can be said about the date of Easter. I remember sitting through innumerable boring sermons in church as a child, flicking through the Book of Common Prayer and coming across the page which gave the rules for calculating Easter Sunday and trying to make some sense of them. And yet the basic rule is simple enough - Easter Sunday is the first Sunday following the first full moon which occurs on or after March 21st. So what's the problem - well, "full moon" doesn't necessarily mean a visual full moon - it's a theoretical full moon worked out according to some esoteric timetable, which may or may not coincide with reality. So like I say, if you think you understand it, you probably don't. Suffice to say that Easter Sunday can fall on any date between March 22nd and April 25th - so this year it's almost as early as it can be.

Vroom, vroom.

So Formula 1 is coming back to the BBC - well, hooray - or at least half a hooray. If nothing else, we'll get rid of those annoying commercial breaks, which often seem to come at the most inappropriate moments, but will we get back to the race taking centre stage, as used to be the case when the Beeb last had it. What I'm afraid of is that they will follow this modern trend of "personalising" everything, with innumerable interviews and human interest stories, when all I want to do is watch is the damned race, for goodness sakes. So it's a cautious welcome.

I thought we'd abolished the death penalty?

You may remember the story of a Ghanaian woman who was deported back to Ghana a month or so ago, when her visa ran out. Nothing remarkable there, but what made it a newsworthy story was that she was suffering from cancer, and whilst she could be treated here, she would almost certainly not be able to get the same standard of treatment in Ghana and would probably die as a result. The Home Office were not moved by her plight, and she was deported despite many pleas to allow her to stay. And now she's died. I wonder if - indeed I hope that - some Home Office official is sleeping less than easily tonight.

Law of the land.

Did you know that if your peace and quiet is disturbed by street musicians, and they refuse to move when you ask them to, they are breaking the law and can be fined? Well if you want to take advantage of this law you'd better be quick, because it's one of over 300 pieces of legislation which Parliament intends to repeal as being outdated. Also included are laws relating to such things as workhouses, turnpikes and The East India Company. Unfortunately, there are no plans to reconsider some of the more recent senseless legislation.

Hello - is there anybody there?

Winston Churchill is quoted as saying "To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war" or something like that. The question is, if you've got to the war-war stage, do you still try and talk to your enemy? World wars apart, history says that, unless you can be sure of achieving a clear military victory, the answer must be "yes". Most recent conflicts have in the end been settled by some sort of negotiation. The question has arisen again over the situation in Iraq and Afganistan - should we talk to Al-Qaeda (who or whatever that is)? Of course we should - I would be amazed (and rather worried) if we were not already doing so. It's clear that we are not going to be able to solve this problem militarily, so the only hope of some sort of finality is through negotiation. Get on with it!

What's in a name?

So yesterday was March 17th - St. Patrick's Day, right? Well, no actually - it's a religious festival, and as such subject to the rules of the Church (Catholic Church, that is). And the rules do not allow St.Patrick's Day to be held during Holy Week - that is, the week leading up to Easter, i.e. this week. So.... it had to be moved for this year, and the Church decreed that it be observed on the 15th. So if you left it until yesterday, you were too late!

Monty Hall

This is a continuation of the previous posts under this title.
Because probability is a branch of mathematics, there's a natural assumption that there must always be a definitive "correct" answer to any problem. But this isn't so. Probability is an assessment of the likelihood that something will, or will not occur based on the information available. And it's these last five words that are important. Different information may well - very probably will - produce a different assessment. Let’s look at an example. Suppose I’m giving a talk to a group of people on probability, and I’m going to use a pack of cards for demonstration. I shuffle the pack, and then ask what the probability is that the top card of the pack is a Jack. Unsurprisingly, the general consensus is that it’s 4/52 - 52 cards in the pack, and four of them are Jacks. But now, let’s suppose that, as I was shuffling the pack, I was rather careless, and one member of the group (call him or her X) caught a glimpse of the bottom card, and noted that it was a Jack. As far as X is concerned then, there are only 51 cards that could be on top, and only three of them are Jacks. They will therefore calculate the probability that the top card is a Jack as 3/51. Let us further suppose that another member of the group - Y - came into the room earlier on, and seeing the pack of cards on the table, decided to play a trick, and removed all the Aces. They will therefore know that the pack does not contain 52 cards, but only 48, and (not knowing about the bottom card) will calculate the probability that the top card is a Jack as 4/48. Let us further suppose that Z is a friend of Y, and knows what Y has done. Furthermore, Z is sitting next to X, who has just whispered the news about the bottom card. Z therefore knows that there are only 47 cards that the top card could be, and that only three of them are Jacks, and will therefore calculate the probability as 3/47.
I could go on, but I’m sure you get the point - X, Y and Z are all in possession of information not available to the rest of the group, and indeed they are all in possession of different information from each other, and have therefore come up with different probability figures. It is tempting to ask which of them is right, but in fact this is a meaningless exercise. They are all “right” in the sense that they have all made the correct mathematical calculation based on what they know. It is equally fatuous to ask what the “real” probability is - to the extent that such a thing exists, the real probability of the top card being a Jack is either 100% or 0% - it’s either a Jack or it isn’t.
Next time we'll look at how this affects you and Contestant II.

Brave little one.

Unless you live where I do, it's unlikely that the name Emily Bailes means anything to you, although you just might remember the little girl who tossed the coin for the women's final at Wimbledon in 2004 - for it was she. At that point, she had recently been diagnosed with cancer, and we all hoped, following an operation to remove one of her kidneys, that she would overcome it. Sadly it was not to be, and she died last weekend, a few months short of her 10th birthday. Sort of puts your own problems into perspective, doesn't it?

Things better left unsaid.

Just what has been gained by the publication of the so-called "John Lewis List", which details how much MPs are allowed to claim for furnishing their London pied-a-terre? Much has been made of the fact that, up until now, the list has been "secret", as though this was some sort of scam the MPs were pulling, but the fact is that the main people from whom it has been kept secret were the MPs themselves. Let's face it - if you knew that you could claim up to £10,000 for a kitchen, the temptation would be to go out and order a £10,000 kitchen, wouldn't it - whereas otherwise you might have been content to go for one for perhaps half that. So there were good reasons for keeping the details of the allowances secret, and other than giving the tabloids something to fulminate about, nothing has been served by revealing the detail. Just who was it who made the application under the Freedom of Information Act, anyway?

Ha ha.

I'm grateful to my Civil Service retirement magazine for this one -

A primary school teacher was observing her class of children drawing. She would wander around from time to time to see how they were getting on. As she got to one little girl who was working away diligently, she asked what it was she was drawing. "I'm drawing God" replied the girl. "But" said the teacher, "no-one knows what God looks like". Without missing a beat or looking up from her drawing, the girl replied "They will in a minute"!

Ooh, I'll have to cut down.....

You often wonder whether politicians live in the real world, don't you. In his budget, the Chancellor has announced an increase of 4p on a pint of beer, and 3p on a litre of cider - measures designed, so he says, to "help reduce binge drinking". Really?? You can just imagine Bazza and Gazza and the lads on a night out debating whether they can really any longer afford their twelfth pint, can't you? No, the person who might just be affected is the little old pensioner up the corner, who might have to make his "half" last a little longer - and he's a real danger to society, isn't he?

The great divide.

So the Americans don't understand our sense of humour, and why so many of our top comedy sit-coms are based on self-deprecation - like "One Foot in the Grave", "Fawlty Towers" or "The Office". Can I suggest that this is a matter of national maturity? We as a nation are old enough to be able to look at the world and see it for what it really is, whereas the USA still has to bolster its self-confidence by constantly telling itself how great it is. So we have Victor Meldrew and they have Rambo.

What do I do?

I'm really in a bind following the weekend's FA Cup matches. I have mentioned before that I'm a Wolves supporter, and as such naturally see West Brom as the enemy. On the other hand, they are a local team and I would really like to see the West Midlands get some long overdue success in the game. So part of me wants to see them thrashed and humiliated, and part of me wants to see them lift the Cup. Help!!

Vale.

Sad to hear of the death of Carol Barnes. Television is a powerful medium and allows us to invite people into our homes as it were, and particularly with people we see regularly and who talk directly to us, like newsreaders, we come to establish a sort of personal relationship with them, so it's like losing a close acquaintance. Silly, I know, but...

Monty Hall.

This is a continuation of the previous posts under this title.
So you've chosen Door A, Monty Hall has opened Door B and shown it to be empty, and you have now announced your intention to swop to Door C, having calculated that this gives you a two-out-of-three chance of winning the car. At this point, let's suppose a new contestant is introduced - call him or her Contestant II. They have never seen this game before, and have been in a sound-proof booth up until now, so have no idea of what's going on. They are simply presented with a closed door, an open door and a closed door, and told that behind one of the closed doors is a car, which they will win if they pick the correct door. They choose Door C. What is their chance of success? Well, they will have no reason to think that the car is behind one door any more than the other, so they'll go eeny-meeny-miny-moe, and pick Door C with a 50-50 chance. So here's the paradox - you have both picked Door C, but you have a two-thirds chance of being right, whereas they only have a one-half chance of being right. How can this be? To explain this, we have to look rather more deeply into just what probability means, and how it works, and we'll do that next time.

Front-line troops.

Two recent news stories - in Salford, traffic wardens are being kitted out with head-cams, in response to the increased levels of abuse and threats to which they are being subjected, and in Peterborough, RAF personnel are being advised not to wear their uniforms, as that is likely to lead to verbal abuse. Two examples of shooting the pianist because you don't like the tune. Traffic wardens are not responsible for parking regulations, any more than service personnel are responsible for foreign policy, but the problem is that those who are responsible are not get-at-able, so any frustration or anger is taken out on the "pianist". Perhaps the point is that if the problem is that serious, those who are responsible should stick their heads above the parapet and take the flak themselves, and perhaps reconsider the policies which have led to the problem.

Right on!!

You may have seen this before, but I've only just come across it, and it's so good feel I must share. It's a quotation by one Larry Hardiman -

The word "politics" is derived from the word "poly" meaning "many", and the word "ticks" meaning "blood sucking parasites".

By the way, I've not been able to find out anything about Mr. Hardiman - I assume he's a writer? If anyone has any info, I would be interested.

Ah, the practicalities.....

As an addendum to yesterday's post, my grandson (see post dated 3rd January) has turned out to be one of the 20% who have not got a place at their first-choice school (just what have they got against our family? - this isn't the first time this has happened!). Quite apart from his obvious disappointment, and the fact that this means he will be losing touch with most of his mates, it also means that I, as driver of the school-run car, will now be faced with the problem of getting three grandchildren to three different schools in three different directions - thanks a bunch, folks!

Annual rant.

I know I bang on about this every year, but it's something I find totally unacceptable and exasperating. Official figures this year suggest that around 20% - that's 1 in 5 folks - of children will not get a place at the secondary school of their (or their parents') first choice. This year, things have been made even more uncertain by the use by some schools (and approved by Government) of a lottery system to decide who gets in and who doesn't. A Schools Minister was on the box yesterday, supporting such a system, saying that it gave everybody the same chance of getting into a good school. Of course, what he didn't say was that it equally gave everybody the same chance of failing to get into a good school. The answer, as I have said before, is for LEAs to work out well in advance what the likely demand will be for places at their schools, and to make sure that the appropriate resources are in place to meet that demand. It's so bloody obvious, isn't it?

What's in a name?

According to one of the more tabloid tabloids, Prince Harry has called for round-the-clock armed protection for his "lover" Chelsy Davy - is there something we should know??

Unbelievable!

This has got to be a wind-up, hasn't it? In order to beef up our immigration controls, we have a new and dedicated Border and Immigration Agency specifically to police those coming into the country. But it now appears that at weekends and bank holidays, only a minimum skeleton staff will be on duty to man the 'phones, and no checks or arrests will be made. So we're hoping that illegal immigrants don't work weekends, are we?

Monty Hall

This is a continuation of the previous post under this title.

Most people reason that, as there are now only two doors the car can be behind, it's a 50-50 chance, and therefore swopping doors makes no difference. In fact, the answer is, you should swop doors, because by so doing, you double your chances of winning the car. Perhaps the easiest way of explaining it is like this - you started out with three doors, and assuming the car is put behind one of these doors at random, you have a one-in-three chance of picking the right door. I think (hope) we can all agree on that. But this means that there is a two-in-three chance that you are wrong - that the car is somewhere else. At this point, that "somewhere else" is either Door B or door C. But once Monty Hall opens Door B and shows the car is not there, that "somewhere else" has to be Door C. You still have - always had and always will have - a one-third chance of choosing the right door in the first place, but if you were wrong (two-thirds chance) you now know where the car is! So swop doors.

But next time we'll look at what happens if we introduce a new contestant into the mix........

Our very own Rambo?

I'm at a loss to understand the media's attitude toward Prince Harry being in Afghanistan. Top story on the TV news, most of the dailies have devoted several pages to it - but why? The tabloids seem to be treating him as some sort of John Wayne type hero, taking on the Taliban single-handed - indeed one paper has him killing 30 of them, and it's only when you read the small print as it were that you discover that what he did was to call in a few air-strikes which may have resulted in that many casualties. If I were a serving soldier over there - even more if I were a close relative of someone who's been killed over there, I would be spitting blood at the way everybody else is being treated as a bit player in the Prince Harry Show - and if I read him right, I bet he doesn't like it either. We do seem to lose all sense of proportion at times.