Boys will be boys.

Is this Grand Theft Auto computer game about which there has been so much hoo-haa, any different in essence from the games we played as kids with wooden guns, shouting "Bang, bang, you're dead"? More sophisticated, more graphic, more emotionally intense and perhaps more morally equivocal, to be sure, but basically the same sort of thing. So is it dangerous? Well, there will always be those who find it difficult to separate fantasy from reality, just as there will always be those who need little excuse to be violent or cruel to others, but children and young people - boys especially - have always played bang-bang type games using the available technology - wooden guns in my day (or cap guns if you could afford them) and computer graphics today. Plus ça change, and all that...

Oh, you're just saying that...

I got a bit annoyed at an article in the paper which quoted a government official as dismissing a suggestion (about postal voting as a matter of fact, but that is immaterial) on the grounds that the evidence was "purely anecdotal". Now anecdotal evidence needs to be treated with caution, particularly when it is what is known as "friend of a friend" evidence ("I have a friend who knows somebody who..."), but when, as in the case in point, somebody is telling you what they personally have experienced, then to dismiss what they say as merely anecdotal is effectively to call them a liar. And when several people all tell the same story, then it deserves to be taken seriously.

Ah, so.....

Shock, horror - Japanese whisky has bagged the top prize in a blind tasting test of whiskies from around the world. The Scots are apparently appalled. But this is a bit like the Melton Mowbray pork pie business isn't it (see post 22/12/05)? There's nothing to tie whisky production specifically to Scotland, other than history. It's all in the grain and the water. Scotch of course, must come from Scotland, but whisky (or whiskey) can be made anywhere, and perhaps it is no real surprise that the Japanese, who are traditionally so good at copying what other people do, should eventually produce a top-class product. Mind you, at (apparently) £150 a bottle, I'm unlikely to be sampling it!

Where's the link?

There is some opposition to this plan to vaccinate all 12-13 year old girls against the virus which is likely to cause cervical cancer on the grounds that it will encourage promiscuity. I can't see the connection. A potentially promiscuous young girl is not going to become more or less so because she has had, or has not had, a vaccination. Equally a "good" girl is not going to become more or less good as a result. The root causes of promiscuity are many and varied, but I don't think having an injection ranks amongst them.

Gestapo tactics?

I think I'm going to have to start a new series of posts about the way the Police seem to think they have some sort of God-given right to behave how they like, with no regard for common sense or common decency. I've posted before about their unacceptable behaviour regarding Ruth Turner and Harry Redknapp, and now we have the story of a man who was erroneously thought to have stolen a plasma TV from a Tesco store. OK, so the Police had to follow this up - no argument. But what did they do - they turned up at his house at THREE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING!! What the hell did they think they were doing? Not surprisingly his wife and children were terrified, and the children in particular are now having problems sleeping. The Police's response? - they acted in "good faith" on the basis of the information they were given. But why 3.00 a.m.???

DNA profiling (2)

So just how likely is it that your DNA profile could be confused with someone else's? The figure most commonly quoted is 1 in a billion - though exactly where that comes from is far from clear, and in any event even if it is anywhere near accurate it almost certainly relates to a "perfect world" scenario, rather than what tends to happen in practice. In reality DNA picked up at a crime scene, say, may only produce a partial profile, or one that is a mixture from several people. The UK's DNA database is run by the Home Office which last year produced a report on its use, covering the period between 2001 and 2006. This report reveals that well over a quarter of samples received from the Police during that period for potential matching resulted in more than one match being found on the database. So the reality is that false matches do occur - indeed are quite frequent. So it's far from the silver bullet that the public are encouraged to believe it is. If your DNA profile is on the database (and it could be even though you have done nothing wrong) the chance of it being confused with someone else's - on the Government's own figures - would appear to be more like 1 in a few hundred. But there's more...

Doh.....!

It may only be April, but I reckon we already have a stone-certain candidate for Jobsworth of the Year Award. It goes to the prat at Copeland Borough Council in Cumbria who took the decision to fine one of its residents for putting out their wheelie bin with its lid not fully down. Raised by four inches according to the resident -"More like six" say the Council (!). This is an area where the bins are only collected once a fortnight, and the household in question consists of a father, mother and three children - it amazes me they ever manage to get the lid down! I know there is pressure on councils to reduce the amount of stuff going into landfill, but this seems to be being used as an excuse for some pretty mindless policies - and this isn't just Cumbria. The resident in question makes the point that if he had simply chucked his excess rubbish over a hedge somewhere, he would only be facing an £80 fine for fly-tipping, whereas the fine for overfilling his wheelie-bin by four inches ("More like six" cry the Council) was £110. Sheer stupidity.

Dark and desirable.

I'm not really a beer drinker any more (bad for the weight) but on the odd occasion when I do go down the pub, I always go for a pint of mild - or rather, I did, because my local has now stopped stocking it. It seems it just isn't popular enough any more - people all want gassy lagers or fizzed-up cask bitters. Stuff with little or no taste in it. Now mild has flavour, mild has character, mild has body - mild can be drunk cold or chambré and it's not overly alcoholic, so you can have a couple or three pints without any ill effects. So I'm on a mission to find somewhere else where there's still mild on tap.

Who's strangling the cat?

I'm not a fan of the bagpipes. I find the noise they make (I would hardly call it music) intrusive and rather unpleasant. The only time I consider it to be in any way appropriate is at funerals. Apparently the EU has passed a law requiring, inter alia, musicians to keep the sound level of what they're playing to an average of 85 decibels. Bagpipes apparently can only be played at full volume and, particularly when a pipe band is playing, they will significantly exceed this figure. So some good may come out of Brussels after all - reminds me of the old joke that a gentleman is someone who can play the bagpipes - but doesn't!

Who was doing what to whom?

Two men are in court accused of causing distress to a dolphin by swimming in the sea with it. They had been drinking and were messing about, but that's not really the point, is it? How does anybody know what the dolphin thought about it or how it felt? At least one witness for the defence has made the pretty obvious point that the sea is the dolphin's habitat, and that if it was disturbed by what the men were doing, it could and would have simply swum away. Somewhat reminiscent of the boy who barked back at a dog (see post dated 30/4/07) and just as daft. Once again, a waste of tax-payers' money.

DNA profiling.

Having disposed of the Monty Hall problem (or at least I hope so) let's move on to another area where probability is a factor - DNA profiling. Now I am not arguing for or against, but what concerns me is that this is an area where there is considerable confusion in the public mind (and I have to say that much of it appears to be deliberately engendered) and this confusion is in great part probability based. So, to start at the very beginning ("a very good place to start") over 99.9% of your DNA and mine is identical - it's what makes us human beings, rather than dogs, or fish, or worms or whatever. So only a minute fraction - around 0.1% - distinguishes you from me. Despite the smallness of this percentage, it still represents an enormous amount of DNA material - far too much for it to be realistic to carry out a complete comparison. So what scientists do is to look at little bits of this material, where experience has taught them that differences are most likely to occur, and this produces what has become known as our DNA profile. Now whilst - excluding identical twins - as far as anybody knows, your DNA is unique to you, it by no means follows that your DNA profile is. More next time...

Ha ha.

For really excruciating jokes, you need look no further than Nick Owen, who is one of the regular presenters of Midlands Today on the BBC. This is one of his -

A man was convicted of stealing Tippex - the Judge sent him to a correction centre.

See what I mean? Thanks Nick.

Potter, potter...

Copyright law is a real dog's breakfast. Originally designed to protect printers against competition, rather than authors against plagiarism, it has constantly had to struggle to keep up with technological advances - and never more so than in the last 40 - 50 years, with the emergence of ever more sophisticated ways of recording and copying things. The problem is that, because it's forever chasing the fire, no-one really knows what the law is. At present J. K. Rowling (for whom I have the greatest admiration) is in court in America trying to prevent someone publishing an A-Z index of the Harry Potter world. But reference books of this type - which are in effect just extended indices - have never traditionally been seen as breach of copyright - and indeed a website doing exactly the same job has been running for some time now without (apparently) complaint. So why is JKR taking this step? I can't help thinking it's somewhat out of character - have her publishers pushed her into it?

Disproportionate proportionalism?

If you want an argument against proportional representation as an electoral method, you need look no further than Italy, who have just elected their 62nd post-war government - that's just slightly short of one every year on average. Although superficially attractive, the problem with PR is that it can result in the tail wagging the dog, with real power in the hands of minority parties with minority support. The current election in Italy came as a result of a party representing only about 1% of the electorate deciding to withdraw from the governing coalition. It is hardly surprising that the main proponents of PR in this country are the LibDems, who would almost certainly hold the balance of power under such a system. There are plenty of arguments against "first past the post" but it does generally produce positive and strong government - even if it's not one to our personal tastes.
P.S. - Since originally drafting this, it would appear that Berlusconi has a working majority without the need to involve other parties - it will be interesting to see how Italian politics deals with such an unusual situation.

Level playing-field?

Can someone please explain to me how it is that enhancing - or at least seeking to enhance - your sporting performance by taking "drugs" is unacceptable, but doing the same thing by spending the thick end of £300 on a technologically enhanced swim-suit is not.

Mint sauce?

What do you make of these new designs for our coinage? A sort of monetary jigsaw puzzle. Quite clever (indeed one is tempted to say just a little too clever-clever) but my question is - why? Coins are essentially utilitarian items - it's what you can buy with them that's important, not how pretty or interesting they look. I imagine that what's behind it is the money to be made from potential sales of commemorative sets - but I hope we're not going to go the same way as postage stamps, with regular changes designed to do no more than make money.

We know best - now go away!

There was a time - many, many years ago - when, if you wanted to put your baby up for adoption, you could choose the couple you wished to adopt it. They would still have to be vetted by the Local Authority, but the choice was yours, if you wished to make it. But then the Government of the day decided that these "private adoptions" should be banned, and that Social Services should be the people to decide who should adopt your baby, and your views and wishes should be disregarded. Why have I been reminded of this? Well, there's a story in the papers about a woman who badly needs a kidney transplant. Her daughter had made it clear that she was willing to be a donor. Then the daughter - tragically and unexpectedly - died. Although there was no formal record of the daughter's wishes, everybody connected knew that she would have wanted one of her kidneys to be used for her mother. But no - the powers that be decided to use them elsewhere. Arrogance? Insensitivity? Callousness? Pick your own word.

Life as it really is.

It is a brutal fact of life that, both as individuals and as a nation, we have at times to deal with people and countries that we'd rather not deal with - and up to a point we may have to deal with them on their terms. China and Saudi Arabia are two such. The current soul-searching about China and the Olympics, and Saudi Arabia and possible back-handers needs to be kept in perspective. The Olympics were given to Beijing whether we like it or not, and we have to deal with it. Bribery, sweeteners, call it what you will, is a standard way of doing business in the Saudi part of the world, and once again we have to deal with it. I think it's called realpolitik.

Point virgule.

The French have been bemoaning the demise of the semicolon. Frankly, I rarely use them - I tend to use the dash instead. Might seem a bit sloppy, and I certainly wouldn't use the dash in a formal letter, so what about the semicolon? As a Civil Servant I was brought up on Gower's "Plain Words" and my recollection is that his advice was to use as few "stops" as possible, and to use them to give rhythm to what you are writing - so a comma is a small pause, a semicolon a longer one, and so on. And the dash - well as I recall Gower didn't like it, but it sort of comes naturally to me, so now I am no longer constrained by the need to be seen to be writing as a representative of HMG, I feel free to indulge myself.

Monty Hall.

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

Yes, I have difficulty in coming to terms with the fact that if MH doesn't know where the car is, that makes a difference. But really, what it comes down to is information. We have seen that different information can lead to different probability assessments. And this means that if there is any change in the information you have, you may need to reassess your calculations. In the original scenario, when MH opens a door and shows it to be empty, this changes nothing - because you know that's what's going to happen. But if he doesn't know where the car is, and opens an empty door, that tells you something you didn't know before, and alters the probabilities. Look at it this way - suppose we have three contestants, X, Y and Z. We put X in front of Door A, Y in front of Door B and Z in front of Door C. Nobody knows where the car is. Each contestant then has a one in three chance of being in front of the right door. Y now opens Door B, and shows it to be empty. I think it's obvious that X and Z now have an equal chance of being in front of the right door. Y of course is Monty Hall and X and Z are both you - if he doesn't know where the car is and opens an empty door, swopping doors doesn't improve your chances. Put it another way - let's simply refer to the doors as (1) the door you choose (2) the door he opens and (3) the other door. The probabilities have to add up to one, yes? So in the original problem the door you choose has a 1/3 chance of being the "right" door, the door he opens has a zero chance (he will never open the door the car is behind) so the other door has to have a 2/3 chance. If he doesn't know where the car is, then the door you choose has a 1/3 chance, the door he opens has a 1/3 chance, and the other door also has a 1/3 chance. And that I think is quite enough, save to say that although the problem bears his name, this was not the game Monty Hall was associated with - in his game you weren't allowed to swop!

The Lazy Cook

If, like me, you have always assumed that microwaveable rice had to be microwaved, you may be as surprised as I was to discover that it can be stir-fried. And this has led me to try one of my simplified versions of a recipe I saw in a magazine the other day. There's a bit of prep involved, but it's not messy and you can do it at your leisure. The cooking time is about 10 minutes.


You will need -
A handful of frozen garlic
About 50g of bacon bits (see note)
About the same of spicy sausage (chorizo is best, but you could use salami or kabanos)
A 2 inch or so piece of ginger
Some coriander leaves (fresh is best, but frozen would do, or dried at a pinch)
A handful of spring onions
Thai fish sauce
Soy sauce
Sherry (if you've got it - not essential)
Packet of microwaveable rice (egg-fried for pref.)

Note - supermarkets used to sell bacon offcuts dead cheap, but I haven't seen them recently. You may find "lardons" which are fine for this recipe, but not all that cheap. Alternatively, just cut up a couple or thee rashers into little pieces.

OK - preparation. Put a tablespoon of the fish sauce and a the same quantity of soy (and sherry) into a small bowl with a few of the coriander leaves and put on one side for the flavours to come together while you do the following: Thinly slice your sausage. Peel and slice (or grate) your ginger. Top and tail the spring onions and chop them.

Method - heat a little oil in your wok. Add the garlic and the bacon and cook until not-quite-crispy. Add most of the spring onions, all the ginger and most of the coriander and cook for a minute or two. Add the sausage and cook for another minute or two. Add the rice and the sauce mixture. Cook for a couple or three minutes, then add the remaining spring onions and coriander and serve immediately.

Bon appetit!

Money better spent elsewhere?

Now it's finally over, am I allowed to ask just what has been achieved by all the time and money which has been expended on the inquest into the deaths of Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed? It's not as though it will have changed anybody's mind - the overwhelming majority who always believed it was nothing other than a road traffic accident will not have been surprised by the verdict, and those few conspiracy theorists will simply see the inquest as just another part of the conspiracy. And the fact that this would be the case was blindingly obvious from Day 1 - so why did we bother?

Music Man.

Herbert von Karajan was born 100 years ago, which seems a good enough reason to celebrate his work - or not, depending on how you view him. Like most successful people, he attracted the envy of those who couldn't match him, and the dislike of those who found him arrogant. And then of course, he was a member of the Nazi party - possibly twice - which in itself is sufficient to put him beyond the pale for many people. For myself, I couldn't give two hoots for all that - he produced some of the most wonderful sounds from the orchestras he conducted of any I've heard. The string sound of the Berlin Phil under his baton has in my book never been bettered. Whenever I was looking for a recording of anything, one of the first things I always asked was "has Karajan recorded it?". For me he is a member of that very small and elite club: The Great Conductors.

Shows improvement.

I bet you're all agog waiting to hear about my Grand National system pick this year. Could I avoid the dreaded hat-trick of fallers at the first fence? So...the system came up with Bewleys Berry. And guess what - it came in 5th, and was actually leading two fences out! Got quite excited.

Taxing matters.

Although most of Europe adopted the Gregorian calendar in the 16th century, we in this country did not do so until 1752. By this time the Julian and Gregorian calendars were 11 days out from each other, so the Calendar Act had to abolish 11 days to put matters right - the 2nd September 1752 was followed immediately by the 14th September. This didn't go down too well with the ordinary people - a lot of them honestly believed that their lives were being shortened by 11 days, and there were several street riots, with people demanding "give us back our 11 days". Also taxes were traditionally due on March 25th (the old start of the year) but this would have meant that on 25th March 1753 you would have had to pay 365 days worth of taxes for a period of only 354 days, so the taxman - in an act of charity completely out of character for his office - advanced the date of payment by 11 days to April 5th, where it has been ever since.

Crystal ball stuff.

Here we go again - the Met Office has predicted that this summer will be warmer than usual and wetter than usual. Well, they got it wrong last summer (it was supposed to be a scorcher) and they got it wrong this winter (it was going to be the coldest for years) so I for one, am not holding my breath.

Monty Hall

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

The essential element in the Monty Hall problem is that he knows where the car is, and will never reveal it - so if you've chosen badly (two-thirds chance) he is bound by the rules to implicitly tell you where the car is (behind the other door). It is this that makes swopping worthwhile. But now suppose he doesn't know where the car is - suppose he simply opens one of the two doors you haven't chosen at random. What then? Well, a third of the time you will have chosen the correct door, and you will win the car, a third of the time MH will open the door with the car behind it (and we will assume that when this happens the game is void) and a third of the time the car will be behind the "other" door. So swopping doors simply exchanges one one-third chance for another one-third chance, and so there is nothing to be gained. I have to say that I find this more difficult to get my head round - my instinct tells me that if I have chosen Door A, MH has opened Door B and shown it to be empty, then using the logic in the previous post, I must double my chances by swopping to Door C, irrespective of whether MH knows where the car is or not. But that in fact is wrong, and we'll look at this next time in what (hopefully) will be the last in this series of posts.

You have of course the right to appeal...

All the publicity around at the moment about the new parking penalty regulations has highlighted two matters which I feel should be of considerable concern. The first is that around 60% of appeals against parking tickets are successful. The second is the statement by the chief adjudicator of the Parking Penalty Tribunal that the new regulations are designed to make drivers more aware of their right to challenge "unfair" penalties. So here we have an official recognition of the fact that the system produces, and will continue to produce tickets which are given out unfairly, and the statistics suggest that these unfair tickets may represent a significant proportion of those issued. Which raises the question - what sort of a Mickey Mouse system is this? Surely it is the system that needs looking at, rather than the provision of a better appeals procedure? The proliferation of fixed penalty notices - be it parking tickets or whatever - has effectively turned the burden of proof on its head. It is now up to you to prove your innocence - if indeed you can. What sort of system is that?

April Fool!

If the basis for Valentine's Day is mysterious (see post 14/2/08), then that for April Fool's Day is even more so. The "fool" or "Lord of Misrule" was a common character in medieval street theatre, and there were many local celebrations at this time of year to welcome in the Spring in which he would doubtless have taken part. And then the general idea of playing tricks on your elders and betters or bringing them down a peg or two is another common theme (I don't know if it is still the same, but when I was in the RAF doing my National Service, the officers always served the men their Christmas dinner for example) and it may well be that April Fool's Day developed out of these basic themes. Another explanation often put forward is that it is to do with the calendar changes which occurred throughout most of Europe (though not here) in the 16th century, when the start of the year changed from March 25th to January 1st. The week-long end of year celebrations ran from March 25th to March 31st, so for the common man the year really appeared to start on April 1st, and the confusion caused to many by the change is said to be the origin of being an April Fool. And then there's Chaucer (again) who, on one interpretation, sets his "Nun's Priest's Tale" of foolishness and trickery on "...Syn March bigan thritty dayes and two..." which comes out as April 1st - and this was written in 1390-some-odd. So it's a real mystery!!