Money, money, money...

So Portsmouth have finally bowed to the inevitable and gone into administration. But far more worrying is the possibility that the Premiership as a whole may well be bankrupt - that is to say its debts exceed its assets. Certainly at the last assessment it was a close-run thing, and things have almost certainly got worse since then. It's difficult to be precise about all this because, firstly, it's not easy to assess just what its assets are - much depends on the notional value of players, which goes up and down as their performance varies, and then some clubs have super-rich owners with bottomless pockets, but just how much of their wealth they would be prepared to expend on their club is not clear, and then on the other side of the balance sheet, much of the money some clubs owe has been lent to them by die-hard fans who wouldn't dream of ever actually calling the debt in. There's little doubt however that if the Premiership was an ordinary commercial concern they would be under close scrutiny to see whether they were breaking the law by trading whilst insolvent.

Music Man

Article in the paper the other day reminded me of the effect the demise of big industrial firms over the last few decades has had on what you might call home-made music. Most of our brass bands and many of our male voice choirs were tied in with collieries and steelworks and such. And as those collieries and the like have closed so the brass bands and choirs have disappeared. And we can ill afford to lose them.

Bloomin' 'eck!

Heard about the Bloom Box? No, neither had I until a couple of days ago. It's a new sort of fuel cell apparently which claims to be super-efficient and more to the point can be coupled-up as many times as necessary to produce sort of super-batteries which could power your house for example. Several companies in the US are already using the technology with reported savings both in cost and in CO2 emissions. Difficult as ever to see beyond the hype and make a true assessment of whether this really is the massive breakthrough its developers claim. My main concern would be that it runs on gas - effectively it uses gas to make electricity - and if it is as successful as its inventors hope, the demand for gas will rise as a result, and business being business, the price of gas will increase and at the end of the day this may result in no real overall savings. Interesting development though - watch this space.

All in the mind?

Further to Tuesday's post, recent comments suggest to me that people are confusing bullying with intimidation. Two different things although they might superficially appear the same. The essential difference is that bullying is a positive act by the bully designed to make you feel bullied, whereas intimidation is simply a state of mind in the head of the person claiming to be intimidated. It is perfectly possible to be intimidated even though the person you claim to be intimidating you is completely unaware that they are having this effect on you. It's down to you whether you feel intimidated or not, whereas it's down to the bully as to whether you are being bullied or not.

Smoke and mirrors.

The present somewhat acrimonious discussions on how to tackle the cost of care for the elderly have brought out into the open what I have always described as the "National Insurance Scam". An elderly gentleman on television the other day was complaining that he had paid a lifetime of NI contributions and as he saw it, it was now for the scheme to provide for him in his old age, and the idea that he might have to pay for any care he might need was disgraceful. But of course the idea that the NI scheme was ever "insurance" in the normal use of the word was always a con. The concept of insurance is that you pay premiums into a pot, which you can then call on to pay for any loss or expense you incur under the terms of the policy. But with the NI scheme, there was never any pot - the idea always was that today's claims would be paid out of today's contributions. So when you get a situation where claimants (in this case the elderly) are needing more than current contributions can cope with, you have a problem. The elderly gentleman's lifetime of contributions went to pay for the claimants of the day - he has no pot to draw on. He was sold a pup, as we all were.

Gimme your tuck money!

It seems strange to be coming to the defence of Gordon Brown again, but is he really a bully, as the media would have it? As far as I see it, bullying - and it's rather more spiteful cousin, harassment - requires three essential components. The first is that it is an exercise of power for its own sake - in other words it must amount to "I am doing this because I can, and there is nothing you can do about it". Secondly, it must be personal - it must be directed against you because you are you, and not just because you happen to be around, or happen to have a particular job title or some such. And thirdly, it must contain an element of coercion - it must be seeking to make you do something you don't want to, or behave in a manner you don't want to. So losing your rag when things don't go the way you wished them to, and shouting and screaming at those you hold responsible, or just happen to be in the firing line, and chucking things around, may make you a difficult boss to work for (and we've all had 'em) - maybe even a lousy boss to work for - and certainly calls into question your man-management skills, and maybe even your suitability to be Prime Minister, but in my book at least doesn't make you a bully.

Compare and contrast.

I was about as unimpressed by Tiger Wood's "public apology" as I was by Gordon Brown's "I'm human really" TV interview that I spoke about the other day. Both stage-managed, both tightly controlled and both done for selfish personal reasons rather than any real attempt to reach out to the public at large. GB's performance was clearly superior to TW's I felt, but really - do they take us for fools?

Time marches on, and so must we.

Sad to see the demise of "Reader's Digest", but it's really a classic example of a product not moving with the times. I was flicking through a recent edition in my dentist's waiting room the other month and thinking how the format had not really changed from when I used to subscribe to it, decades ago. For me it was a bit like meeting an old friend, but clearly it has little relevance to today's generation who are used to a different style of magazine. And I could never understand the "subscription only" policy - it always seemed to me to exclude a whole raft of potential readers who might have picked the odd copy up at a newsagent and just might then have gone on to take it regularly. I wonder if anyone will come forward to try and keep it going - but if they do, I think it will need a significant make-over.

Take your pick.

So last week we had a group of economists saying that we needed to start making spending cuts as soon as possible (the Conservative approach), and now we have another group of economists saying that spending cuts should be delayed for a year or so (the Labour approach). And these would be the same economists presumably who were caught completely off guard by the banking crisis? Might just as well toss a coin, seems to me. My penn'orth for what it's worth is that I can't see that getting further and further into debt makes much sense. What's that old saying - when in a hole, stop digging?

Enter your PIN....

If you care to delve back to my post of 1st November 2005, you will see that I was suspicious of the introduction of "chip and pin" for the reasons I gave then. But I was prepared to accept that it was a more secure method than "sign the chitty" which it replaced. But now it appears that it is not that secure. Researchers at Cambridge University have demonstrated that the terminal in the shop can be fooled into thinking that the correct PIN has been entered when it hasn't - and even more worryingly the bank records will show that it was, and therefore you will have little or no chance of getting your money back. The only saving grace is that to perpetrate this fraud, your card needs to be used, so the moral is - be sure to keep your cards safe!

Hooray, or...?

I really don't know whether I'd want to be the winner of the £56m Euro Lottery prize, because those people who did win it are now going to become public property. Their every move is now going to be scrutinised, their life and doings will become daily fodder for the red-tops and their privacy will disappear. On the whole, I can't say that I envy them.

Ha ha.

Lovely throw-away one-liner heard on TV last Sunday. When a commentator was asked if he'd made breakfast in bed for his wife on Valentine's Day, the reply was "No - but I've booked a table for tonight. (Pause) Mind you, she's not much cop at snooker!"

We know what's best for you...

I'm worried by these reports that British and NATO troops are engaged in "winning the hearts and minds" of local Afghans in the areas they are taking back from the Taliban. The logic of us being there is that we are a liberating force, and if that were so we would have no need to win hearts and minds - they would already be ours. If the locals truly saw us as liberators, they would be on the streets cheering us. We didn't, after all, have to worry about winning the hearts and minds of the French, Dutch and Belgians when we invaded in 1944. The very fact that there is the need to do so in Afghanistan suggests that the Afghans do not see us as liberators at all - and if we are not, then just what are we, and just what is our purpose in being there? Regime change again?

R.I.P.

Dick Francis - one-time leading jump jockey (and I'm old enough to remember Devon Loch) who became a thriller writer par excellence. He wrote 40-odd books - or, depending on your point of view, he wrote the same book 40-odd times. But for sheer entertainment he was the master of his craft. You knew where you were with a Dick Francis, and he never disappointed. Formula fiction to be sure - but what a formula! His latest books were written in collaboration with his son Felix, and I don't know whether he will take up the torch from his father, but if he does, he'll have a massive job on his hands. Thank you, Dick, for all the pleasure you've given me over so many years. Sleep well.

Today is...

...not just Valentine's Day but also Chinese New Year, so (and there are many ways of writing this, but I'll use the one I was taught)

Kung hai fat choi

Anything for a vote?

How unedifying is this spectacle of Gordon Brown pouring out his heart to Piers Morgan in a staged interview designed apparently to portray him as more of a touchy-feely character. We have the emotion of him talking about the death of his new-born daughter eight years ago. Yes - eight years! I am not doubting the sincerity of his feelings, but why has he waited eight years to tell us about them? Is it anything to do with the fact that we are within a few weeks of a general election? Make up your own mind.

Get in line.

When I worked I used to be involved, among other things, in bankruptcy proceedings, and I remember feeling very sorry for "ordinary" creditors, who always had to take their place in the queue behind any government creditor, like the Inland Revenue or the VAT people, and by the time they had been paid off (in full) there was usually little left for the other creditors. Always seemed rather unfair. But now it seems the rules for football clubs are different. The present proceedings against Portsmouth FC have drawn attention to the fact that where a football club is involved, the Revenue have to take second place to any "footballing creditors". So the players' and staff's wages, any transfer fees which have been agreed but not paid and such like will take precedence over any money owed to HMRC. Which considering that what is owed to HMRC is owed to us, the tax-payer, seems equally unfair!

Fermat's Last Theorem

I mentioned this in passing a few posts ago, but just what is it? Well, consider the following trivial sums -
7+5=12
24+6 = 30
19 +127 = 146
These all follow the pattern of a+b=c, where a, b and c are different numbers. Obviously there is an infinity of numbers which you can put in place of a, b and c. So let's take it a step further - what about a²+b²=c² that is one number squared plus another number squared equals a third number squared. There are plenty of numbers to satisfy this equation - the simplest example is 3, 4 and 5 - 3 squared (9) plus 4 squared (16) equals 5 squared (25). These are called "Pythagorean triples" but that's another story. So, a step further - a³+b³= c³ and here's the problem - nobody has ever been able to find three numbers which satisfy this equation, or indeed any such equation with a power greater than 2. This fact has been known for centuries, and the idea that such equations had no solution had become what mathematicians call a "conjecture" - that is something they are pretty sure is right, but nobody has ever been able to prove. So - to Fermat. Back in the 17th century, paper was very scarce and expensive, and so if you were reading a book and wanting to make a note about what you were reading it was commonplace to write the note in the book itself - in the margin or at the top or bottom of the page and so on. After Fermat's death, when they were going through his stuff, they came across a book which was talking about the conjecture, and Fermat had written in the margin something like "I have found a wonderful proof for this, but there isn't room for it here". Had it been anyone other than Fermat, probably not much notice would have been taken of it, but Fermat was one of the foremost mathematical minds of his time, and so this started a centuries-long search for the proof that Fermat claimed to have found. But had he? Almost certainly not - the conjecture has indeed now been proved, but only as recently as the 1990s and only then by using mathematical techniques which were not even dreamed of in Fermat's day. Along the way there have been several false proofs, which looked good until you really subjected them to close scrutiny and it was probably one of these that Fermat had found. If you want to look further into this Simon Singh has written a very good and approachable book called "Fermat's Last Theorem".

Look at me...!

I'm not on Facebook and cannot ever see myself wanting to be, but most of my family are, and indeed the grandchildren spend loads of time on there. But I can't see it - would you really get on a bus, sit next to a complete stranger, and start telling them all about yourself, your life, what you did today, and showing them pictures of your friends and family? And yet, as far as I can see this is what Facebook is all about, and somehow the fact that it's done on a computer seems to make it more acceptable than doing it on the bus or wherever. Yes I know that you can restrict who sees what you put on there, but we constantly hear of Facebook sites being hacked into, and certainly the fundamental idea of Facebook seems to be that its members should broadcast themselves to the world at large. I find it a very strange concept.

How old's your little boy?

An Asda store has come under fire for refusing to sell alcohol to a 44-year-old woman because she had her younger partner and young son with her, neither of whom could produce proof of age (and her son was in any event only 17) and, as the store saw it, there was no guarantee that she was not going to pass the alcohol on to them. This is another real can of worms. Firstly of course, no shopkeeper is ever under any duty to sell anything to anyone - so Asda had an absolute right to refuse to sell the alcohol - or anything else for that matter - to her, without having to give any reason. Whether that was a good and sensible move from a customer service point of view is another matter. But the main problem is the law relating to the sale and consumption of alcohol, which is a real dog's breakfast. Anybody over the age of five can legally consume alcohol in private and under adult supervision (although depending on age, social services might take a dim view) but you can't purchase alcohol until you are 18. So far, so good, but then the Licensing (Young Persons) Act 2000 made it an offence for anyone to purchase alcohol on behalf of someone under the age of 18. Obviously a law made with the best of intentions, but it creates a ridiculous situation whereby an adult can buy alcohol for themselves, and then permit someone over the age of five to drink some - or indeed all - of it, but cannot buy the alcohol "for" that other person. But where's the distinction? The offence, if it is committed at all, is committed after the sale, when the alcohol is passed on to the minor - or alternatively is a matter of construing the intention of the purchaser at the time of sale. And because the penalties are far from trivial, it is not surprising that stores err on the side of caution and circumstances such as happened in Asda occur. So beware if you go shopping with your children - you may have to forgo that bottle of wine!

Music Man - R.I.P.

I'll be honest and say that I was never a great fan of Johnny Dankworth's style of jazz, but he was a major figure in his field, and his musical talents went much wider than his playing - he composed the title music to many films and TV series and even ventured into "serious" music. And thank you to Maureen Lipman for the perfect quote - "We come, we go ... and with a bit of luck we leave something behind" - and whatever your views on the matter, he sure did that.

Do not pass Go

A new version of Monopoly is coming out soon, it appears, with a round board, more realistic property prices and some sort of electronic banker. It's a game I could never take to, because at heart it's just a complicated version of snakes and ladders. There's no real skill involved - it all depends on the fall of the dice. And games tend to go on far too long. Those who enjoy it will continue to do so, but I can't see a makeover getting many new adherents.

Well I never!

I'm constantly amazed when consequences which were blindingly obvious at the time appear to catch everybody by surprise when they come to fruition. The latest example is GP out-of-hours care. Anybody with half a brain could see that being seen by a locum who doesn't know you and at best is just working from your notes would be an inferior service to being seen by your GP who knows your history and has seen you regularly. It has taken an unfortunate fatality to bring matters to a head but a report commissioned by the Government has finally stated the obvious. Whether anything worthwhile will come out of it is I fear another matter.

Dark days ahead?

Winning the next election must be a bit of a poisoned chalice. I wonder if deep down, all parties are secretly hoping they will lose. Whoever is in power in just over four months time is going to have to make some deeply unpopular decisions and almost certainly face public anger and waves of industrial action. Their chance of lasting more than one parliament will be slim. Who'd be a politician?

Probability - how it all started.

Back in the 17th century a French man-about-town called Antoine Gombaud (also known as the Chevalier de Méré) was making a nice little bit of money for himself by betting people that if he rolled a die four times, he would roll at least one ace (i.e. one). He didn't know why this worked in his favour - he simply knew that it did. Unfortunately his friends and acquaintances also quickly cottoned on to the same fact, and he found it increasingly difficult to find anyone prepared to take his bet. So he decided to change things a little and started to bet people that he would roll at least one double ace in 24 rolls of two dice. His logic was that getting a double ace with two dice was six times less likely than getting an ace with one die, and therefore if he multiplied the number of rolls by six his chance of winning would remain the same. He soon realised that this was not happening, and that he was losing money. He therefore wrote to Blaise Pascal, one of the foremost brains of the day to ask him why. Pascal in turn wrote to Pierre de Fermat (he of the famous last theorem) and their subsequent correspondence was the beginning of the mathematical theory of probability.

Nous avons changé tout cela...

Is it cynical to suggest that the Government's sudden conversion to the idea of proportional representation (or at least some watered-down version of it) is solely down to the fact that they now see that there may be some sort of electoral advantage in it for them? They certainly didn't want to know back in the late 90s when they were riding high. So, no I don't think it is!

Mr Smitherton 'phone home....

According to a recent survey, a third of schoolchildren believe that at least one of their teachers is an alien from outer space. Crikey, so my old maths teacher might really have been not of this world then? We were all convinced that there was something really weird about him - and maybe we were right!

Why did we bother?

What an utterly depressing appearance by Tony Blair before the Iraq Inquiry the other day. OK so we elected him (or more accurately we elected those who elected him) to make these sort of decisions, so he was simply doing what he was paid to do. OK, so he believed - some people might think naïvely - what he was telling us about the threat that Saddam posed. And OK, if the war had gone well, we wouldn't be beating ourselves up about it and having this Inquiry - but it didn't and we are. So what did I want - what could he have said or done to make me feel better about things? And the answer is, I don't really know - I just hoped that he would have said something to make me feel that he understood how I - and so many others - feel. But apart from an almost throw-away remark that he regretted that the war was "divisive" I heard nothing to indicate that he had any appreciation that there could possibly be any point of view other than his own. Totally predictable, and totally depressing.