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you'd better be quick, because it's one of over 300 pieces of legislation which Parliament intends to repeal as being outdated.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!!