Out, damn'd spot!

Have you seen this idea that rubbers (no, not that sort - erasers!) should be banned from classrooms? One Guy Claxton, who is described as a "cognitive scientist" - whatever that is - has gone so far as to call them "instruments of the devil".  His argument is that they allow children to conceal the fact that they have made a mistake and pretend that they got it right first time.  There should be no shame in making mistakes, he maintains.  I am reminded of the old adage "the man who never made a mistake, never made anything".  Well, it's a point of view, but is this really why kids rub things out?  I can only speak for myself, but for me it would be more a matter of neatness of presentation - I would feel more ashamed of handing in an untidy piece of work with crossings out than the fact that I'd made mistakes.  Also I've yet to come across a rubber that rubs out without leaving some evidence that it's been used, so the idea that it conceals your mistakes is questionable.

A tangled web...

So we've now moved on - we've redefined marriage, and husband and wife, and now it seems we're changing the meaning of mother.  This arises because Elton John and his partner (husband?) David Furnish have two children who were born to a surrogate. Again I have no problem with that arrangement, but the children need birth certificates and on those certificates David Furnish is entered as the mother. Can't help thinking that things have gone a little crazy!

Dabo tibi ius

Feels a bit awkward to find myself siding with Vladimir Putin but, whatever may or may not have been going on in FIFA, I find it difficult to see what it has to do with the United States (whose connection with the game is pretty peripheral) and from whence the FBI gets its jurisdiction.  Perhaps all will become clear in due course. 

Who's number two?

Well, blow me - a public poll has suggested that the UK's second city should be Manchester rather than Birmingham, which has traditionally unofficially held that title. I need of course to declare an interest - I come from the Industrial West Midlands and Birmingham is our largest city.  Mind you, I am the first to admit that Birmingham is not what it was - the former "city of a thousand trades" became more and more reliant on the automotive industry and when that went into decline 40 or so years ago, so did the city.  It is still the largest city after London, but whether the title of second city should be based purely on population size is perhaps open to argument. Certainly recently Government seem to have given preferential treatment to what they have referred to as the "Northern Powerhouse" and so perhaps the tide is turning their way.  Can't see any point in Birmingham going into a sulk though - we are what we are and we know we're really the second city whatever anybody says!

Day off!

Did you have a nice Spring Bank Holiday last Monday?  It's now fixed as the last Monday in May, but it used to be Whit Monday, the day after (you've guessed it) Whit Sunday, which is the seventh Sunday after Easter, and as such is a moveable feast. Why Whit?  It's short for white, and traditionally the priest or vicar wears white vestments for the day.  It's also called Pentecost which comes from the Greek meaning fiftieth, and it is the fiftieth day after Easter Sunday, if you count that day as day one.  In 1971 the Bank Holiday was changed to the last Monday in May as a fixed date was felt to be more desirable.  There have been calls to do the same thing with the Easter Bank Holidays but that's not so easy (see post dated 3/4/10).

Music Man

I don't play the piano much these days, but when I did I used to enjoy playing (or trying to play) the early music of Alexander Scriabin, who died a hundred years ago this year.  Musically way ahead of his time his idiosyncratic style  paved the way for composers such as Prokofiev and Stravinsky.  Although his later stuff is too atonal for my tastes, his earlier pieces are harmonically quirky whilst remaining tuneful. Indeed he always cited Chopin as one of his exemplars.  His music very quickly fell out of fashion after his death and is little performed today but he deserves to be remembered.

What if...?

Can't understand all the fuss about the fact that the Bank Of England has set up a little group to consider the practical ramifications if the coming referendum were to result in a vote to leave the EU. Don't know about you, but I would be concerned if they weren't doing something like that - it's just common sense to think about what might happen and have contingency plans formulated for the various scenarios. Much is being made about the fact that (until some prat pressed the wrong button) this was being done "in secret".  But I think there's a distinction between deliberately concealing what you're doing, and simply not talking about it, and I feel this was just a case of the latter.

So did she say it??

Nicola Sturgeon (leader of the SNP in Scotland) getting on her high horse about the admission by the LibDem MP Alistair Carmichael that he was the source of the story during the election campaign that she had admitted to the French Ambassador that she would prefer to see the Conservatives win the election. The basis for this was said to be the contents of a memo of her meeting with the Ambassador written, as is standard protocol, by a civil servant who was present.  She is suggesting that Carmichael should resign. Once again, I think the pertinent question is not being asked - quite simply, is the memo a true account of what was said?

You can't leave it there!

Suggestion that Scotland will make it illegal to park on the pavement.  This is being done in the spirit of ensuring the "free movement of pedestrians".  Yes, I can see that, but the other side of the coin is that if cars can't stick two wheels on the pavement it's likely to cause chaos on the roads which are generally too narrow to easily accommodate both parked and moving vehicles going in both directions.  As a driver and, at one time, a wheelchair pusher, I can see the arguments both ways. The basic problem of course is that our road system is totally unsuitable for the use to which it is being put in modern times, but I'm not sure that preferring one set of users over another greatly helps.

The Lazy Cook

Mediterranean vegetables for roasting - you can find them in most supermarkets and roasted they make a good accompaniment to meat or fish, but you can also use them for a cheat version of a Greek dish called Briam (pronounced bree-am) which you can do in the slow cooker.  You will need about double the quantity that you would use as an accompaniment.  Just tip the vegetables into the slow cooker, add some crushed garlic and a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, and there you are - couldn't be simpler! If you want to take it a step further add some sliced potato and aubergine, if those are not already included and serve with some crumbled feta cheese.

Whatever next?

You know Emmenthal - that Swiss cheese that's full of holes?  Well American food regulations state that the holes must be no bigger than 3/18ths of an inch in diameter.  As it's a natural process caused by carbon dioxide creating bubbles as the cheese matures, it's difficult to see how you could control the size of the bubbles, and therefore the holes, but more to the point is why there should be any limitation on their size.  You buy cheese by weight, so it's not as though you're being diddled if the holes are particularly big.  I suppose there must be a reason, but can't see it myself.

Think I'm getting old...!

I'm confused (again!!)  It's a long time (over 30 years) since I studied law, and I know a lot has changed in the interim, but I always thought - and was taught - that the common law was indestructible.  Statute law could over-ride it but it remained there and if the statute was ever repealed it would spring back into life. Furthermore, if Parliament wished to pass an Act which over-rode common law, they needed to specifically spell that out.  Why am I going on like this? Well a bakery in Northern Ireland has been found guilty of discrimination for refusing to bake a cake for a customer which carried a message with which they disagreed.  Now my understanding of the common law position is that no shop is under a legal obligation to sell anything to anybody (basic contract law) so their reasons were immaterial - they had the right to refuse the order (or for that matter any order). So how can you reconcile that with the court's decision?  Like I say - confused.

Cricket, lovely cricket.

The question is a simple one - if you were in charge of English cricket, would you have Kevin Pietersen in your team?  The argument is equally simple - he is a prodigious talent, well capable of winning a game on his own, but as is so often the case, a prodigious talent is accompanied by a prodigious ego, and he can be - and has been - a disruptive influence on and off the field.  But - so what?  We talk about a cricket team, but it has never seemed to me that cricket is really a team game in the way football and rugby are.  Whether batting, bowling or fielding you are very much your own man doing your own thing and thrown on your own devices.  So is it really that important that you all get along?  Andrew Strauss is on record as saying that it's all about "trust" but hasn't elaborated further.  Can't help but feel that this smacks of a personal vendetta between the two of them, and if it is, should this be allowed to stand in the way of England putting out their strongest team?  I'd have him in my side, warts and all - what about you?

...nor any drop to drink.

It seems we now consume some 2 billion litres of bottled water a year - around 40 litres each on average.  And we pay something like £2 a litre for the privilege.  Can you imagine anything more stupid, when you can just turn on the tap and get water for free?  Well, not exactly free, but for a fraction of a penny a litre.  It's a shining example of the triumph of advertising over common sense.

Y'wot??

I've spoken before about the local accents round here and how impenetrable they can be.  Since Staffordshire fire service merged with Birmingham a year or so ago, there have been big problems on the 'phones with office staff unable to understand each other - to the extent apparently that they have had to set up "translation" meetings to try and sort it all out!  Or rite, ar kid?

Shame...

Sorry to learn that Chuka Umunna has pulled out of the race to become Labour's next leader.  Over a year ago I was suggesting that he was the most likely person to reconnect the party with the voters.  I understand his reasons (which reflect badly on the media) but I can't help but think that the party has just lost its best chance of winning the next election.

Lot of fuss about nothing.

I still don't understand the basis on which the the courts decided that the "black spider" correspondence between Prince Charles and various public officials had to be published, but now that it has, can I ask what purpose it has served?  So Prince Charles has views on various things - well, big surprise!  It has been suggested that as a member of the Royal Family and potentially our next monarch, he should have kept these to himself.  But what's the basis for that idea?  In our unwritten constitution, the monarch has the right to "advise and warn" and I cannot see anything in the letters to suggest that he went beyond doing just that.  I'm sure the Queen makes her views known to the Prime Minister at their weekly meetings but this remains confidential between the two of them.  And these letters should in my view have been treated with similar confidentiality.  So I ask again - what purpose was served by forcing their publication?

Cross when the gay couple are green...

Remember the post about Dortmund in Germany replacing some of their flashing green "cross now" men with women?  Well Vienna has gone one better - in the spirit of promoting equality of different types of relationships they are using same-sex couples.  I can't keep up with this!

Eh??

Correspondence in the paper recently about the strange clever-clever sort of questions that are wont to crop up from time to time in exam papers for university places.  I particularly liked this one - the question posed was: Is this a question? And the best response was deemed to be - Yes, if this is an answer.

Away with the fairies?

The weekend's celebrations of VE Day reminded me of one of the mysteries of my life, and that is that I have no recollection whatever of that day.  Now I would have been 7 coming up 8, and I have quite distinct memories of the war itself - so why do I not remember what was obviously a momentous day?  My wife, who was barely 4 at the time, remembered it vividly - the street parties, the bunting, the music and dancing. It really is a puzzle, and of course the problem is that there is nobody left to ask who might have been able to throw some light on it.  Strange...

But we didn't vote for them....

So all but three of the Scottish constituencies now have an SNP nationalist as their member of parliament, and the cry is already going up that the Westminster government do not "represent" them.  Once again Scotland see themselves somehow as a special case. Here in the industrial West Midlands, and even more so in Merseyside and the North-west generally (and not to mention London itself), the election map is overwhelmingly red, so the same could be said to apply.  But that's democracy, isn't it?  There will be winners and there will be losers, and if you're one of the losers, you accept it (not necessarily with good grace) or go and live elsewhere. Frankly the Scots get on my nerves, forever throwing their "Scottishness" in the faces of the rest of us.  After all, they represent slightly less than 10% of the electorate of the UK as a whole, and the idea that the other 90% of us should have to dance to their tune is the antithesis of democracy. Grow up, folks!

Opinion polls

"How could they have got it so wrong?" is the cry.  And I remember the same thing being said after the 1992 election to which I referred yesterday.  And the answer is the same now as it was then - they didn't get it wrong.  They accurately reported what people were telling them.  If people were lying - or perhaps to be more charitable, concealing their true voting intentions - then that's not the fault of the polls.  Why people would do that is perhaps the more interesting question.  It's been suggested that some might be embarrassed to admit they intend to vote for the Conservatives - the so-called "shy Tories".  Then again it may be that Conservative voters generally are more likely to be the sort of people who guard their privacy.  So can anything be done to make the polls more reflective of what is actually going on? One suggestion is that instead of asking flat out: who do you intend to vote for, pollsters should ask more indirect questions designed to build up a profile of the person being interviewed - and this profile can then be used to predict their voting intentions.  But the lesson to be learned is - treat polls with caution.

General election result.

Well - did you see that coming??  Not being wise after the event, but I did think that there would be a late swing to the Tories, as there was in 1992, but I didn't think it would be anywhere near as big as it was. My private thought was that they might end up with between 290 and 300 seats.  And I do feel sorry for the LibDems who seem to have been soundly punished - I'm not quite sure what for.  Miliband I think was always doomed right from the time he was elected leader despite not being the choice of either the MPs or the party, but being selected purely on the union vote. For many he could never shake off the lable of "Red Ed".  Despite all the fuss, I always thought the SNP was somewhat of an irrelevance as far as Westminster politics was concerned, although they could certainly have been a nuisance and it may well be that their portrayal as "the bogeymen" did take votes from Labour outside Scotland.  UKIP - where do they go now? Assuming that we have the promised in/out referendum on EU membership, and assuming - as I believe - that this results in a vote to stay in, what is left for them? And I never really understood what the Greens were all about.  So, the people have spoken and we shall see what happens.

This is how it goes...

Well I've finally sorted out the answer to the question I asked on May 5th about the order of succession to the throne.  The Act which did away with the precedence which males used to have over females was the Succession to the Crown Act 2013 and this provided that "Males born after 28 October 2011 no longer precede their elder sisters in the line of succession".  (The emphasis is mine). So that's why the Princes Andrew and Edward still take precedence over Princess Anne.  I am no longer confused!

Ha ha

An election day joke -

Politicians are like nappies.  They both need changing regularly - and for the same reason!

Nice little earner!

It was there in the small print, but it's taken a few months before it's become apparent.  It's all to do with car tax and the doing away with the tax disk.  Suppose A has a car which he taxed for a year back in January.  He now decides to sell this car to B, and he does so today  The tax - or what's left of it - no longer transfers with the car.  B has to tax it anew, and as the DVLA only work in complete months, he has to tax it from the beginning of this month.  A can claim a refund for the unused tax he paid, but once again, as the DVLA only works in complete months, he will just get back the tax for the months of June to December.  So A has paid to tax the car for the month of May, and so has B!  Like I say - nice little earner.  The answer of course is for the DVLA to switch to working in days rather than months - but think of all that lovely lolly they'd lose!

How does it go?

I'm confused (nothing new there then).  In the paper the other day was a graphic showing the line of succession to the throne.  So first, Charles, then William, then George, then the new baby, then Harry.  So far so good.  But then next in line is Andrew, followed by his children, and then Edward followed by his children, and only then do we get to Anne.  Now I thought we'd passed a recent law doing away with this idea that males took preference over females, so surely Anne and her children should slot in after Harry and before Andrew?  Like I say, confused.

Let's have a break.

I think we really do need a rest from politics.  I'm sure there will be plenty to say after Thursday, so I'm declaring an election-free blog until then.  So, what to talk about? Well, it did occur to me that I could have done one more post on my "It's a secret" series, so here it is.  You'll remember that we ended up with public-private-key cryptography, whereby you have a public key which you tell everybody about and which they can then use to encrypt a message to you.  But the message can only be decrypted by you using your private key.  But the system works just as well the other way round and so has another use.  Suppose I send a message to you and I want to convince you that the message has indeed come from me.  I can add something to my message which I encrypt using my private key. You - or for that matter anybody else - can decrypt it using my public key and as only I have my private key, it must have come from me.  This is known as a digital signature and has proved one of the most useful and used aspect of PPK.

Here we go again?

So all the indications are that we are heading for another hung parliament, leading inevitably to another coalition - formal or informal.  Indeed we could end up with a "coalition of the losers" whereby the Conservatives could have the most seats of any party, but Labour could cobble together enough seats with the help of other parties to defeat them.  I don't think we've had such a situation before in recent times and the question is bound to be raised as to what legitimacy such a government would have. In such an eventuality the Conservatives or Labour could of course try and govern with what seats they have - a minority government.  In my view this would be preferable, even if it is pretty well bound to be short-lived. And all these protestations by Ed Milliband that he won't do a deal with the SNP are frankly so much piss and wind.  He doesn't have to do a deal - he knows that the SNP as a matter of principle will never vote with the Torys - so their votes are his, deal or no deal.  The only thing which could upset the apple-cart is if the SNP throw their teddies out of the pram and decide to abstain to teach Milliband a lesson.

Food banks

I 've had my say about these (3/6/13) and I won't rehash what I said then, but apparently their usage has increased significantly over the last couple of years and this is being presented as evidence of an increase in poverty.  I've had my say on that too (13/6/09) but the question it seems to me is whether this increase is supply-led or demand-led.  In other words is the number of food banks increasing because more are needed, or are they being used more because there are more of them? I imagine your view will depend on your political stance.

A child's guide to politics.

Labour - all problems are rooted in social inequality, and you solve social inequality by taking money from the rich and spending it on the poor (note - spending it on, not giving it to - subtle distinction).
Conservative - society works best when people are left to their own devices to sort things out. Government should interfere as little as possible.
LibDem - why can't we all get along?
UKIP - England for the English - sod everybody else
SNP - Scotland for the Scots - sod everybody else
Plaid Cymru - dywarchen y lot ohonoch
Greens - who knows?