The mob, the opportunist and the thief

The other day I ate a Tesco Cauliflower Cheese containing 41% cauliflower and 11% cheese; as a friend commented, this meant “48% slop”. Presumably a little more would have required its inclusion in the title of this tasteless side dish. “Slop” would be an accurate description for the last seven days too; it’s not been a good week.

After a proposed sentence reduction for guilty pleas is defeated, we have announcements for a wider rollout of a scheme to “name and shame” offenders, followed by a promised clarification of a householder’s right to maim and kill those transgressing on their property; the “hang ‘em high” mob must be in seventh heaven. I am not immune to thoughts of vengeance, but I fail to see who benefits, and lest this be mistaken for wishy-washy liberalism (though it’s true I also object on moral grounds), it makes little economic sense. The reality is that most who injure will at some point be released and such measures will have no effect on whether they re-offend; more worryingly, that doesn’t seem to be the intention. If you treat people like animals, then they’re more likely to behave as such; rehabilitate, and even if successful in only a small minority of cases, that’s a small minority that won’t be breaking into other people’s property, or worse. That’s a number who instead of draining the public finance will be making their contribution.

Not one to be outdone, Ed Miliband decided that as leader of the opposition he would oppose the public sector strikes. I don’t support them either, but then I’m not sure anyone regards the Labour leader’s stance as genuine; in supporting he gains nothing, by opposing he hopes for the votes of the undecided. It’s an understanding that those who stick to the middle ground win elections. It’s the smart move, but I'm not convinced.

Yet despite these contenders - the appeal to the thug inside, Ed Miliband’s appeal to anyone who will have him - the prize goes to journalist Johann Hari of The Independent newspaper. Johann, we discover, has a rather unique interview style, as he does definition of plagiarism, and some interesting variations on the concept of truth. There is apparently the truth, and then there is a broader “intellectual truth”; one that doesn’t let minor details such as what happened get in the way of a story that needs telling. His excuse for stealing - sorry, copying - comments from other interviews or even the subject’s own writing, is to enable us to understand what the interviewee was trying to say, rather than what was said. Thank goodness for Hari; though I’d suggest his employers add their own version of the following to any existing and future “interviews”:

Some events have been deliberately changed or left out for dramatic purposes.

If Hollywood is able, you’d think The Independent could do the same.

Whoosh!

Having had a whinge about BT, I should at least acknowledge when it works. The new hub arrived, it looks a lot nicer than the old one, it was easy to set up (in that there was very little to do) but most importantly it works. The BT Vision box needed a little coaxing, but powering everything up in the order suggested did the trick. Also it’s worth giving the hub a few hours to settle on a speed. Initially I was still only getting around 1Mb/s and - having ignored the advice about waiting before running any tests - had surrendered to the thought of needing to check all the wiring; a few hours later it had settled at just under 12Mb/s. The literature says to wait ten days for a more accurate reading, but for once I am optimistic. Assuming the hardware problem has been sorted, I now need to wonder on the user problem; somehow this month the house has averaged in excess of 1GB/day usage, and I’m beginning to think it may be less a daughter/YouTube problem and more a parent/iPlayer problem. Yes, alright, it’s my fault.

Putting all your eggs in one BT basket

This has happened to me twice already, and having come from the lovely fibre-optic world that was Telewest (now Virgin Media) it’s frustrating. On the day when BT upgraded my broadband to ‘up to’ 20Mb, I instead (or as a result) experienced a fault at the exchange leaving me without broadband or telephone for three days. And since Freeview comes with my BT Vision box, I was without that too. That was a surprise; fair enough that a loss of broadband means a loss of on-demand content, but to lose the ability to set a recording (which was my first indicator that this too was broken) and once you try rebooting the box as a result, find you’re unable to watch anything, was decidedly odd. Is this ‘bad design or ‘by design’ I wonder? I suspect a bit of both.

Last weekend the connection speed dropped so low the on-demand service stopped working again. A couple of speed tools suggested I was getting a measly 500kbps, and the diagnostic suggested by the BT engineer indicated I was configured for ‘up to’ 4Mb; so I’d found something else on which to deliberate. I suspect, but who knows, I am a victim of BT throttling; my daughter having found the delights of YouTube, corresponding with an email warning that I had used 32GB of my 40GB monthly allowance, is a clue. However, if I believe BT, since the on-demand service doesn’t contribute to the monthly allowance, I wouldn’t have thought this should make a difference and at least that part of the service should still work.

It doesn’t help that my rather creaky Home Hub instils so little confidence. I reboot it on an almost weekly basis and often get stronger signals from wireless devices other than my own; this I hope to address with the new hub I’ve ordered today. But BT, if you’re able to hear this, because with your service there’s no telling whether you’ll get the message, don’t stick “free delivery” on the image unless “free” really is one of the delivery options; it’s kind of annoying.

Six thousand dollars? It's not even leather!

On second thoughts, £350 for a web browser? It doesn’t even have an optical drive! Out of curiosity I shall persist with the challenge of web-only use on my home machine, though since all this means is giving up Microsoft Office... well, I think I can manage that. I have greater challenges ahead. On Monday I have to correct the disaster that was Friday, where I managed to live my life backwards; now, nothing works. Nothing on my virtual desktop; my old fashioned right-in-front-of me desktop (though since I was working from home, I had remote access to that too) carries on regardless, whereas its replacement can’t even finish installing a service pack before rebooting.

Courtesy of BBC iPlayer, Saturday was better. Rubicon, which has occasionally threatened the fate of a shaggy dog story, defied my expectations and delivered the best episode yet. Will’s private investigation into his boss and the shady company Atlas McDowell, is dovetailing nicely into his team’s search for terrorist mastermind Kateb. It’s a throwback to those conspiracy films from the seventies, such as The Parallax View and Winter Kills; that sense of an individual’s hopeless stand against the tide, overwhelmed by events.

I could say the same for the best drama of the year, The Shadow Line; of which - save for an unnecessary salute at the end - I don’t think there was a duff moment in the whole series. What impressed with the final episode was how, even with the nature of the conspiracy revealed to Jonah Gabriel early on, I wasn’t sure how it would be resolved. I didn’t see it coming, though I really should have; the scene where Joseph Bede, played by Christopher Eccleston, leaves his house and stops momentarily when he sees his car waiting for him, was perfect. He knew.

Follow up some excellent television with some equally good films in Sin Hombre and There Will Be Blood, and the result is a quality weekend... albeit a bit grim. I’ll need a week or more of Pixar to restore the balance. And it would help if I could get my machine to work.

Chrome yumminess

It says a lot about how much I like the Google Chrome browser that I can say ‘yumminess’ without too much embarrassment, also that I should spend a more-than-is-healthy-for-me amount of time salivating over the new Google Chrome Notebook. As a software developer I default to the position that a Chromebook is of no use to me, though I confess that, particularly with a VDI solution implemented for work, this will become less of a barrier. Besides which, I’m stubborn enough to believe that portable means secondary, and as an additional device it has an attraction.

Two applications that I already use with Google’s browser are Gmail and TweetDeck for Chrome; both use HTML5 notifications and both are preferable to their client application alternative. In moving to the browser they gained simple advantages that I’d never previously considered; integrated search for example. And I could learn to use Google Apps, though I admit in the past to having returned to Microsoft options rather than making the effort.

So where are we on this evolutionary path and is Google’s fundamentalist ‘everything in the cloud’ approach the right way? Or is Apple’s comparatively conservative ‘data in the iCloud’ more likely to succeed? And what gives with Microsoft’s Windows8 emphasis on HTML5 and Javascript? I digress; it’s the shiny objects that have my immediate interest, even though it’s hypothetical. I am on the outside looking in; iPads, Chromebooks, Snoozeberries, Everlasting Updates… such goodies are beyond my reach, and it's probably healthier that way.

Ranking behaviour

What a strange inconsistent lot we are. Whilst I don’t care for ranking the seriousness of a criminal offence, I am forced to this position with rumours that the Prime Minister wants to drop the 50% discount on sentencing altogether, as opposed to Kenneth Clarke and Nick Clegg who are prepared to exclude sexual offences from any discount. It seems Ed Miliband and various other apparatchiks, in another unholy alliance with our less salubrious members of the press, have made a good fist at trying to wreck this piece of progressive reform.

Yet I am unsure whether to praise Ken and Nick for trying to at least get a part measure accepted, or the Prime Minister in the unlikely hope that his stand was based on a refusal to indulge the often politically-motivated outrage generated. No single person is wholly good or wholly bad, and monstrous crimes should not blind us to the possibility that any one person can be rehabilitated. That it often fails is not the point; that it can succeed is our hope. What greater hope for an enlightened society?

The happiness of angels

I find no meaning in the happiness of angels. I know simply that this sky will last longer than I.

There was no rancour, only a gentle parting of the ways. Sometime in my early teenage years I came to the conclusion that I no longer believed in God, realising that I couldn’t remember the last time I had. That my outlook on life - some vague notion of leaving the world a better place - didn’t change as a result, might suggest it was never serious; certainly, I don’t think I’d ever thought of the life that came next. Of course my outlook did change, or rather the scope, but not until much later and at an age when such goals feel foolishly optimistic, conceited even.

At first I never gave it more than a passing thought; life would appear to have little purpose but there was plenty to keep me occupied. Age granted me time to think again, not through a fear of death, more a building curiosity on a question for which I suspected an unedifying answer. Thus I came to The Myth of Sisyphus & Other Essays.

Albert Camus; born in 1913 in Algeria, died in 1960 in Paris, a contemporary of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, a one-time communist - albeit during the 1930’s - who in criticising Soviet communism after the war managed to alienate his colleagues on the left, including Sartre who publicly denounced him. I confess, as with George Orwell, this only makes me like him more. Camus was a proponent of absurdism; a philosophy describing the conflict borne from our desire for meaning in a meaningless world, and discussing how we should react when conscious of this fate.

At least I think that’s it. I could hardly claim a complete understanding, yet for a work portraying the “philosophical suicide” of others, notably Kierkegaard of whom he suggests “an almost intentional mutilation of the soul”, The Myth of Sisyphus is a positive life-affirming read. Camus examines whether realisation should logically lead to suicide and answers with a defiant ‘No’, concluding such an act to be rejection. “There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn” he says, though I think he describes it better in one of the other essays:

For if there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.

Solidarity

In 1980 I was thirteen, Leonid Brezhnev was in his 16th year as leader of the Communist party and therefore the USSR, the Soviet Bloc - having survived the Hungarian uprising - was a reality, it would be five years until Gorbachev’s leadership, nine until the fall of the Berlin wall. To someone my age, politics on a global stage was a duopoly; the free west versus the oppressed east. 1980 was the year a Polish electrician and trade union activist, Lech Walesa, became leader of the Soviet Bloc’s first independent trade union, Solidarity. It was my first indication that things could be different; albeit not without struggle, arrests, detention... martial law.

It’s why every time I see an avatar or comment tagged #Solidarity, I can only shake my head in disbelief. At least that’s one emotion; another was annoyance, this appropriation of the past to romanticise their own role as agents of change. But I settled on bemusement; this lack of self-awareness, I wonder if they’re prone to talk of an ‘elected dictatorship’? Some might be too young to remember, it could be mere coincidence yet, accidental or not, from my viewpoint they still look awfully silly.

Reason

I remind myself; every time I find something that isn’t working I’ve found something to do, as opposed to wondering about my choice of font. Since discovering that embedded comments are causing a problem - in that you can’t comment - I’ve switched to a pop-up window; it looks rubbish, but it works. Slightly more difficult will be unravelling the customised HTML, started when I knew next to nothing and continued through various stages of ignorance; it’s more ‘fun’ that way.

How long has it been broken? Possibly only a week, and since I don’t remember tinkering in that time I wonder if Blogger have done something to interfere with my ‘enhancements’. I should probably update to the latest designer, but that would mean starting over which... would give me something to do.

There are better goals. Absurdism may not be the easiest of subjects but I am determined to finish Camus, albeit not ‘finish with’ Camus since it’s well written - or should that be those bits I can understand are well written - as I dare say are the many bits I can’t. I’ve heard The Outsider is good too. And there’s a host of other stimulation to be found from people who I’ve never read. Small steps, something a little more accessible next; and I don’t say that to knock my intellectual capability, only that I’m a little slow.

Blue sky

It's stopped raining - I can even see patches of blue sky between the thick grey clouds. However, this is only a recent event - and since it has been raining for most of the day, it is my excuse for having spent the afternoon on iPlayer. I'm feeling a tad guilty, but I dare say I'll get over it. Dinner - if I can call what I did to the potatoes 'dinner' - has been served, I've the washing to do shortly and then I'll have the evening left in which to relax. Yet I'm in one of those odd moods where even though the chores are (almost) done I can't quite settle.

Four brilliant episodes of The Shadow Line later, I think what I need now is a light comedy, something to lift the heart a little.

The house of mirth

It's performance appraisal time and social convention requires you re-acquaint yourself with the company mantra:

Those who shout the loudest have the most to gain.

Of course that's not entirely fair, but then neither is making you fill in this form. Luckily you stumbled into contract work for several years and were able to opt out of such torture, resisting attempts of well-meaning managers to drag you back in; now however you’re a permanent participant of this divine comedy. The problem being that once an organisation reaches a certain size, the forms start to cater for the lowest common denominator, bloat with unnecessary detail and punish those who already have a strong work ethic. It's difficult to maintain a sense of individuality; especially when you reach the page containing a table of verbs and adjectives "you might want to use".

OK, so they're not that bad, but I am ambivalent. A formal appraisal can feel an admission of failure when continuous informal is the aim, where a well-run company has the least to gain and an ill-run company the most. It is at best an aide memoir for good management, not a requirement.

The last post

This may be my last post. Earlier today I migrated my Google Apps account to become ‘more like a full’ Google Account, whatever that means. Doing nothing would have meant an automatic transition a few weeks from now; this way (I reasoned) I could at least deal with any problems at a time of my choosing. Ever the pessimist I did wonder about the custom domain name on my blog, the setting up of which had resulted in my Apps account. On the other hand, I’d done this within Blogger and there must be numerous such examples. Cue a few uncomfortable hours unable to log in at all, wondering if that was that and not sure I wanted to ‘start again’, followed by a desperate ‘clear the cache’, as if that was going to work... which it did, and millions breathed a sigh of relief. Well, eleven at the last count.

Waving goodbye

I would gladly wave goodbye to the hysteria generated over Ken Clarke’s refusal to play catchphrase, but can only hope (rather than believe) this to be the case. ‘Rape is rape’ is one of those peculiar expressions that manage to be both true and false; it is everything to everyone, a statement intended to end rather than open a conversation.

Yet if we believe in rehabilitation, as I do, we need to discuss what that might mean in practice. Is recovery possible for those who have committed the most heinous of crimes? Can reduced sentences for those who plead guilty form any part? What are the exceptions? Without presuming to answer, these are all valid questions.

Ken Clarke is what some might regard as a rare breed, a pro-European liberal reformer of the Conservative party; it’s a miracle he’s survived so long. He came unstuck for eschewing the usual platitudes, others will take note and avoid making the same mistake, probably they’ll avoid the subject altogether.

To be trusted

I have just one on my browser, the RSS subscription extension, and that is all. The problem with any add-on, or to be more accurate the problem I have with any third-party add-on, is amply demonstrated by the message box displayed before installing the Amazon Wish List extension. Do I want to install something that can access my data on all websites and all my browsing activity? Not really! The advice is to only install from those you know and trust. The obstacle is that other piece of advice; when it comes to the web, trust no-one. I’m not sure who said that, maybe it’s just me, but when the help page informs you ‘Your data on all websites’ could mean the following...

This item can read every page that you visit -- your bank, your web email, your Facebook page, and so on … Besides seeing all your pages, this item could use your credentials (cookies) to request your data from websites.

... it doesn’t really help at all. Yes, I ‘trust’ Google and Amazon, but the power of any app. store (and I hope Apple don’t mind me using the term) comes from the thousands of developers who contribute to it. Insufficient permissions granularity means it relies on – and is possibly even hindered by - misplaced consumer faith and worse, in some cases ignorance - including my own.

Finding the difference

In the televised debate of the 1988 US presidential campaign, candidate Michael Dukakis was asked whether in the event of the rape and murder of his wife, he’d favour the death penalty for the killer. Dukakis replied “No”, pointing out he’d always been against the death penalty and explaining the reasons why. Some analysts believed this answer a contributing factor towards him losing the election that year; others considered the question itself unfair.

Two weeks ago, Osama bin Laden, after years on the run - or more accurately years hiding next to a Pakistani military base - was finally tracked down and killed in a US operation. Despite my best efforts, I am unmoved by the summary justice (call it revenge if you will) meted out for his crime. The moral twist is the possibility that information leading to his whereabouts may in part have been obtained through the use of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’.

I find this “torture is immoral and anyway it doesn’t work” argument, unsettling; for the simple reason that I imagine it can work. Likewise, the question to the former Governor of Massachusetts was valid, as was his answer, though something was missing; if a member of my family were murdered I’d want to kill the bastard. Yet both these acts - torture or state execution - are wrong. I don’t think there anything amiss in acknowledging this contradiction; it reminds us we are but a few steps from barbarism. Our response is the measure of any compassionate society.

In case of emergency, break glass

It’s all over. Only it isn’t. When the polling stations closed at 10pm on Thursday I barely limped over the line, and the count didn’t even begin until 4pm on the following day. I’d never make it in politics. I’m exhausted and all I did was read a few blogs, follow the conversation on Twitter and occasionally engage; not always successfully.

Not so long ago I bumped into an introduction to what Eli Pariser describes as online “filter bubbles”; this is the end result of a personal web, where services and results are tailored to our individual tastes. Amazon makes this clear by allowing me to ‘fix this recommendation’. Google less so; perhaps they judge it not so advantageous to them for me to control the web history that affects my search results. The consequences are a web that once broadened our horizons can now narrow our view of the world.

But am I complicit in these phenomena, for example when choosing who to follow on Twitter? It’s clear at least that after the trials of the AV referendum I need to think a little more on the etiquette. Getting blocked, it’s a modern-day rite of passage - or more likely a sign I need to temper my comments - since the result is to create a “bubble” of one’s own.

Not so simple and a lot more tactical

From the very start of the debate, many advocates for the alternative vote (AV) have insisted it eliminates the need for tactical voting. Whilst I’m sure this is a genuine mistake it does rather point to another common fallacy; that AV is simple. On the surface it is; what could be simpler than ranking your preferences in order? However, it would be foolish to judge a system solely on how it is intended to be used, whilst ignoring how it can be used.

With AV, if I vote “Conservative, Labour, Liberal” am I expressing a preference for Conservative ahead of Labour, and Labour ahead of Liberal, or am I actually expressing a preference against the BNP who also stood? Perhaps the “Conservative” preference is genuine and “Labour, Liberal” is tactical? A tactical vote, to quote Wikipedia, is when a voter supports a candidate other than his or her sincere preference in order to prevent an undesirable outcome; I would re-phrase this only slightly to say it’s when a voter expresses anything other than a sincere preference in order to prevent an undesirable outcome.

Tactical voting under our current first-past-the-post (FPTP) system is still a clear indication of how I intend my vote to be counted. Tactical voting under AV is nothing of the kind. It may indicate how I intend my vote to be counted, it may only in part, or it may be wholly designed to exclude an unwanted option; and there are other variations which, for the sake of brevity, I’ll omit.

A mantra of “voters should rank the candidates in order of preference” doesn’t cut it when - frankly - they don’t have to, and if AV were as simple as some suggest, then its advocates would be more aware of this. That they’re not shows that it isn’t.

A socialist and her money

As a result of an accidental Cate Blanchett triple bill - what a fine actress - I heard the following exchange. Says the matriarch of a self-described “socialist family”:

We don’t care about money here, Mr Hughes.

To which Howard Hughes replies:

Well that’s because you have it.

Beastly man insults fair maiden

There was a telling moment in yesterday’s Prime Minister’s questions when, after repeated attempts at interruption, David Cameron told Angela Eagle to “Calm down, dear”. Cue faux outrage on the opposition benches at this sexist slur from our pig of a Prime Minister. Ed Balls made much of looking particularly upset, as if someone had made a pass at his wife. Well, I would. It reminded me of my days at the Polytechnic - or the University of The West of England as it likes to style itself - and the Labour students who would roam the campus, desperately searching for something new with which to be insulted.

But it struck me that if we’re going to look at this silly incident seriously, it’s the Labour Party’s attitude to women we should worry about. Tim Farron, one of those nice Liberal Democrat MPs, recently gave a speech describing the “organised wickedness” of Margaret Thatcher’s government. I’ll pass on his obviously stupid commentary, but provide it as evidence of the nasty things politicians of different political parties sometimes say about one another. The front benches insult each other on a regular basis, and Labour’s stance suggests they think women unable to cope with this hurly burly of politics. Now that’s patronising.

Once more, with feeling

An abstract avoids prejudice but fails to engage, an analogy whilst having sound maths is vulnerable to complaints of being too simple. And an illustration using our political parties is at risk from the same criticism, but I thought I’d re-write the case of an alternative vote (AV) that leads to an ‘unfair’ result. The point isn’t so much “Party A voter would never vote for Party B”, but that they might express such a preference in order to keep out a substantially worse candidate. For instance, as someone who generally votes Conservative, I have no fondness for either Labour or the Liberal Democrats; however I wouldn’t hesitate to vote for either of these options to ensure exclusion of the BNP. Here’s the example:

There are four political parties standing in your constituency; in alphabetical order of party (and as it happens, candidate): BNP, Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat.

48,226 votes are cast.

The BNP receives 2,296 first preferences, of those votes the second preference where stated is split 978 for Conservative and 620 for Labour. 20,668 people vote Liberal Democrat; it subsequently turns out their second choice isn’t relevant – likewise for the 16,075 who vote Labour. The vast majority of the 9,187 people who vote Conservative don’t really care for the other two main parties, which shouldn’t surprise anyone, however most of them also loathe the BNP.

That’s understandable, and the best way to express this is a feature of AV that isn’t afforded by our current first-past-the-post (FPTP) system; the ability to vote against one party by voting for all the others. In our example, most of those whose first preference was Conservative do exactly this, and since they don’t have a preference with the other parties they rank them according to the order in which they are listed. This is called a donkey vote and whilst it is most common where full preferential voting is required, it applies equally here. As a result the ‘second preferences’ for those who vote Conservative are divided 8,177 for Labour and 991 for the Liberal Democrats.

With the vote in, the count can begin, and after the first round the BNP, having the fewest votes, is eliminated. The next preferences of those votes are added to the remaining candidates to give us the following: just over 42% would like a Liberal Democrat MP with around 35% opting for Labour. It’s still not a majority so the Conservative vote is eliminated… and something interesting happens when the ‘second preferences’ are added to the count. These would be the people whose other preference was mostly ‘anyone but BNP’ and consequently voted for the other candidates in the order that they appeared.

Despite having significantly less of the ‘positive’ vote, Labour’s candidate wins through having a superior position in the alphabet.

As I stated previously, what this illustration and others show is how AV can work; the result – fair or otherwise – depends on how the example is framed. I could as easily have had the Conservative candidate prosper as a result of Labour’s anti-BNP sentiment; not perhaps to the extent of the numbers used above, but certainly enough to affect the outcome. This example doesn't say how likely it is, only that it’s possible; under AV you can have a result that many people would consider unfair; it’s a system not nearly as simple as some would have us believe.

Stokes Croft

The trouble in Stokes Croft, Bristol on Thursday brought back an old question of why people feel justified in such protest. I’m sure some get a real kick out of standing up to large - and therefore evil - corporations such as Tesco, but for any shop to survive it will require customers.  If as suggested people really “don’t need” or “don’t want” the new store then it will close through lack of business. Smaller shops will only be threatened if local people stop using them; that is their choice. It is choice that is really at risk. Protecting the local character? No, these demonstrations are about something else; an attempt by a vociferous minority to impose their will over that of the individual.

A plague on both your houses

In 1975 the UK held a referendum on whether to maintain its membership of the European Economic Community, a forerunner of the European Union; skipping the argument on the seemingly inexorable move from economic to political union, the result was a huge majority to maintain the status quo. I was eight. Thirty-six years later we have a referendum on the method for electing MPs to the House of Commons. I can’t remember anything about that earlier ballot; though I remember much that was ghastly about the seventies, it’s difficult to imagine the debate being worse than the one we have today.

At present, the UK uses the 'first past the post' system to elect MPs to the House of Commons. Should the 'alternative vote' system be used instead?

First up was No2AV who, faced with the difficulty in pointing out how irrational the link from an expenses scandal to a need to change the voting system, not surprisingly ducked the issue. You’re not going to win any votes from the ‘something must change’ lobby by highlighting such nonsense, so instead they crunched numbers in a way that would make even Enron blush. Deep breath… it’s going to cost you… ooh… let’s say £250 million to change your voting system. And just when you think someone has finally managed to put a price on democracy you find out a third of that questionable figure includes the cost of holding the referendum itself. Eh? Next thing you know they’ll try suggesting the ‘alternative vote’ benefits the BNP. Oh… Baroness Warsi, how could you? Not only is that dubious, it’s irrelevant.

Did you hear that Yes2AV? Doubtless Baroness Warsi was thinking of Churchill’s comment on AV, how results would be “determined by the most worthless votes given for the most worthless candidates”; but this doesn’t benefit the party itself, only those whose first preference may have been “worthless” and, in case I haven’t made myself clear, it’s irrelevant! To decide on one voting system over another based on a hypothetical that it may benefit a party of whom you disapprove is hardly a democratic stance. However, the more enthusiastic supporters of the “Yes” campaign must have skipped this rather basic lesson and are currently indulging in their own example of twisted logic; one that can be summarised as “the BNP want you to vote ‘No’, therefore you should vote ‘Yes’”. It is, I’ll grant, tempting; until that is you remember most proponents of AV would rather have proportional representation, a system that would most definitely benefit that obnoxious party. One might think they were prepared to say almost anything; that someone else started it, but presumably they’re going to finish it. Let’s hope not.

Forgiveness

Do children understand forgiveness? Whilst capable of bearing a grudge they seem more willing to forget; out of necessity, or perhaps nursing a grievance is a skill to acquire. Once developed, we spend the remainder of our lives learning to forgive. My teachers are not infallible nor my parents invincible, but the greater failure comes much later, and is my own. First we learn to forgive others, and then we must learn to forgive ourselves.

From one virgin birth to another

Fifteen years later I finished A Prayer for Owen Meany; fifteen years ago it was the last remaining novel. I’d read the others, starting with the big hitters; The World According to Garp and The Hotel New Hampshire were followed by four more, with Owen purposely held back, saving the best (by reputation) to last.

John Irving has gone on to write several more since then, he was hardly going to wait for me, and since it’s been so long I’d be hard pressed to say which of his earlier work I thought best. I still have fond memories of The Water Method Man, but in those days my cynicism came from fashion rather than experience. A Prayer for Owen Meany is a great book and I’m ashamed of my earlier lack of understanding, my intolerance toward the narrator John Wheelwright; a character more interesting for the past than the present. I’d thought I was better than that. I’d thought the book would be better if his life in Toronto were excised altogether. I was wrong. Not only does it provide contrast, it is an honest portrayal of a damaged life; and if some parts are more appealing than others - that ought to seem familiar.

Old favourites

I watched a couple of favourites on the weekend in The Godfather and Gattaca. Francis Ford Coppola’s mafia classic of such renown now, it’s difficult to imagine the trouble involved in making the film, from assembling the cast - for example, the studio didn’t want Marlon Brando - or even hiring a director; Coppola wasn’t first choice and was constantly on the verge of being fired. I’ve read that when asked he at first refused for fear of glamorising organised crime, but was won over when he thought of making it a metaphor for capitalism; funny because whilst I’ve never noted the metaphor, I’m aware of the criticism. I’d always assumed this was the reason for a change in tone between it and the sequel which followed a couple of years later; both films end with a settling of scores, but the latter contains no sense of triumphalism.

These two films (a third was made 16 years later) have been treated dreadfully on television. I remember on one occasion they were spliced up (part two contains story lines set before and after the events in part one) and shown in chronological order as a mini-series; worse and somewhat bizarrely, it was dubbed to remove the language that so offends, whilst maintaining the violence. Nowadays I notice the frayed edges; the blood isn’t the colour of blood, and there’s a noticeably phony fight scene between Sonny and his brother-in-law, Carlo; but these are minor details, even if you do see Brando as hamming it up, the story wins through. It’s always the story.

Gattaca suffers from this same nit-picking. Science fiction (if it can be labelled as such) often will; this time I found the the romantic subplot ropey, and the murder more MacGuffin than of any interest. In the past, when asked I would always list three films; Un Coeur en Hiver, The Elephant Man and Gattaca. And despite any faults, Gattaca would remain as its feel, particularly for the future - with an increasing ability to alter our DNA and ever insistent demands for a database - is truer today than when I first saw it all those years ago. I wonder, when it happens, if we’ll still have the self-awareness to realise what we’ve done - and whether it would be better if we didn’t?

The Zadie Smith school of economics

That the grotesque losses of the private sector are to be nationalised, cut from our schools and our libraries, our social services and our healthcare, represents a policy so shameful I doubt that this government will ever live it down. Perhaps it is because they know what the history books will make of them that our politicians are so cavalier with our libraries; from their point of view, the fewer places you can find a history book these days, the better.
-- Zadie Smith on Radio 4.

That’s twice this week I’ve been left gobsmacked at some frontier gibberish. Let’s deal with the trite conclusion first. If I know anything, it’s that (winners aside) history is written by the academics; an obvious comment perhaps, but important in the context of understanding the filter through which such accounts are already written. When a Labour council closes a library it is the fault of the Conservative-led government; if the Conservatives turned water into wine, history would conclude that Labour could have done better.

What really grates though is the dubious grasp on economics. I’ll tell you Ms Smith who’s really paying for ‘the grotesque losses of the private sector’; it’s the rest of the private sector - they’re the only ones who pay for anything. I’ve seen company pension contributions stopped and most of my colleagues made redundant, others have taken pay cuts or enforced shorter hours; do let me know when you’ve caught up. During good times and bad, it is the private sector that pays (directly or indirectly) for ‘our schools, libraries, our social services and our healthcare’, all that has changed is the amount of money available; and incidentally, since spending on the NHS is increasing, perhaps you could explain how this constitutes a cut, or did you feel duty-bound to throw in that old chestnut?

Made for television

Whenever anyone said anything that was a lot of bullshit to him, Owen Meany used to say, ”YOU KNOW WHAT THAT IS? THAT’S MADE FOR TELEVISION – THAT’S WHAT THAT IS.”
-- A Prayer for Owen Meany

A prayer for John Wheelwright

In the summer of 1996 I packed a few books for holiday, including one that I was perhaps half way through reading; A Prayer for Owen Meany. I remember finishing The Remains of The Day, a book as disturbing as it was sad, even more so than the film. I know I read a few others, perhaps another John Irving, but I can’t remember why I stopped Owen Meany as it was terrific, perhaps I thought it too good to waste on the sun? Whatever the reason, the book remained in the suitcase and wasn’t removed until I returned home – where it was placed on a bookshelf to gather dust.

Last week I decided to pick up where I left off 15 years ago. Actually, since it was that long ago I decided to recap from the beginning and I’m glad that I did. I found myself laughing at the same places as before; Owen’s part in the nativity play had me in tears, and how many books have managed that? More surprising was my reaction to John Wheelwright, the narrator of a story told in extended flashback. As is usual for this style, we are more interested in the story than the ‘present day’ interludes but this time around I am struck by another thought; the older John Wheelwright is so tiresome!

The narrator’s target is Reagan, but since there’s been quite a few since then I can’t help wondering; is there a Republican president that the Democrats haven’t wanted to impeach? This is possibly a little unfair because the Republicans are more than capable of dishing it out; from laughable suggestions that Obama is a communist to impeaching Clinton, who to be fair did lie under oath, but I guess it wasn’t a big lie or it was the kind of lie that’s OK.

But I digress, I’m curious that it should bother me more now, when my own political views are, shall we say, less strident than before. Was it because in ’96 there had been 17 years of a Conservative government, and one felt obliged to listen to an alternative voice? Or was it because I was still in my twenties (just), where I could relate to an earnest attitude, albeit one in danger of tipping over into boorish behaviour. Or am I just as tiresome?

I think I am still reeling from Ed Miliband’s nonsense on the weekend, and as a result perhaps a little less predisposed towards our storyteller. And it’s a good story, I’ve almost caught up to the part where Owen helps John avoid the draft, it will be all new from there on in. Of course it’s Owen I really want to hear about, but I wonder about John too. What calamity waits, what event transpires allowing me to bridge this gap? I suppose that means I care, and I hope we can be friends; what greater achievement than to make a friend with whom you disagree.

Labour has risen from the grave

We come in the tradition of those who marched before us; the suffragettes who fought for votes for women and won, the civil rights movement in America who fought for equality and won, the anti-apartheid movement who fought the horror of that system and won. Our cause may be different but we come together today to realise our voice and we stand on their shoulders. We stand on the shoulders of those who have marched and struggled in the past.

I can only hope that the unfortunate timing of Ed Miliband's speech at the anti-cuts 'march for the alternative' rally, which coincided with the moment some idiots started to smash up London, won't distract from his staggering lack of perspective. Indeed, given that before the election the then Labour chancellor Alastair Darling was warning of cuts from his own party that would be "deeper and tougher" than the 1980's, there's the faintest whiff of hypocrisy.

When holy books become wholly metaphor

Lots of reports today on a study of census data taken from nine countries; which has extrapolated religious extinction. It’s an interesting conclusion because, Voltaire’s comment aside - “if god did not exist it would be necessary to invent him”, I had always assumed this end. However, I have history in blurring the boundaries; my experience of religion, when religious, was generally of the positive. To me, even when I did belong the Bible was more metaphor than fact. I can’t remember whether I stopped believing before or after I began to see the ‘will of God’ as more important than the figure, since foremost had always been the message; Love.

Take five... or maybe six

As if stringing words together into sentences and gathering sentences into paragraphs wasn’t difficult enough, I now have to learn to count. The English Baccalaureate consists of six subjects, not five, unless you count ‘science’ as one subject in which two passes are required, which is confusing. I blame a post on the BBC website which stated ‘five’ but counted two as one, not helped by (possibly inaccurate) reports from last year which suggest that from the time it was first mooted the science part of this new benchmark has been beefed up. Never copy other people’s homework.

Take five

I am both exasperated and amused by the reaction to the introduction of the English Baccalaureate. The response has been much the same as when school ‘league tables’ were introduced, with an additional complaint thrown in for good measure. The familiar concern is along the lines of different populations and diverse backgrounds making any such measurement ‘unfair’, or that some children are better suited to vocational study. I have some, but not much, sympathy for this view; because whilst the make-up of the school provides context for the answer, it is irrelevant to whether the question should be asked.

As an average parent living in an average area, I fully expect there to be disparity between my local schools and those in a more affluent part of the country; where practically possible, I also have every right to know what those differences are.

The English Baccalaureate takes existing data and measures how many pupils achieved passing grades in five ‘core’ subjects; maths, English, two science, one foreign language and either history or geography. There is no additional work for school, teacher or (most importantly) pupil, yet the same tired arguments have resurfaced along with a new and equally irrelevant grievance; that this measurement has been applied retrospectively. I might as well complain that a distance once measured in yards is now given in metres.

And what’s to stop the IPPR, teachers unions or other agitators from crunching the data on a different set of subjects, creating their own Baccalaureate if you will? Indeed, the correct question for the Commons Select Committee is not “why those particular subjects” but, given the internet, why not in addition allow the public to compare schools based on selected subjects of their own? It’s only information, why so afraid?

You say Keynes, I say potato

Admittedly I can’t recollect much about the Keynesian economics I was taught at school; the little I remember revolved around the idea of flattening out the peaks and troughs, running a surplus through the ‘good’ times and thus having money for ‘infrastructure’ investment during the ‘bad’. But there were two fundamental problems I had with this as a teenager and they are the same two problems I have today:

If investment in infrastructure is required, what has this to do with any economic cycle? Are we saying we should time any such expenditure accordingly? That doesn’t seem likely. Or are we to invest in something that normally we wouldn’t consider? That doesn’t seem sensible.

My main concern however was more human; I couldn’t envisage any government being able to show the self-restraint necessary during the boom years to run a surplus. The previous government proved this point chillingly by gorging through tax receipts during the larger part of the last decade, and still managing to build up debt to eye-watering levels.

But having a dig at Labour, fun though it is isn’t what I wanted to get off my chest; it’s the continued use of the ‘Keynesian’ adjective. To be valid, this is a qualifier that can only be applied to an extended period of time over which there has been both ‘more’ and ‘less’ expenditure, otherwise it’s… well, fluffy nonsense used to justify spending money we haven’t got on things we don’t need. Talk of ‘Keynesian-style’ investment is gibberish because of what has, or rather hasn’t, gone before; I may as well take a fiscal contraction during the 1980’s of Margaret Thatcher and call it Keynesian; and I can’t imagine anyone arguing that.

Our Lord, Ferguson

Whereas I can easily pin-point the moment when athletics died, with Ben Johnson in 1988, football isn’t so easy to discard - the nonsense off the field is part of the drama, hell I miss Jose Mourinho, but I doubt I’ll ever miss Alex Ferguson. I couldn’t care less about mind games, they’re puerile and a fall-back for lazy journalism, but I do care about the use of debatable decisions to question the integrity of others.

…you want a fair referee. You want a strong referee anyway and we didn't get that. I don't know why he's got the game. I must say that when I saw who was refereeing it, I feared the worst.

Last season Ferguson received a two match touchline ban (with another two suspended) and a £20,000 fine for questioning the fitness of the referee Alan Wiley. Doubtless the defence for his attack on Martin Atkinson will be a couple of controversial incidents that went against Manchester United, a defence that is completely irrelevant. It’s OK to say the referee made a mistake, but it is simply not acceptable to say the referee made a mistake and from this insinuate that he is corrupt. More than that, it’s pathetic. Doubtless he’s already forgotten Wayne Rooney’s deliberate elbow in the head of Wigan’s James McCarthy – the assertion that there “was nothing in it” was absurd. One hopes the Football Association will pull their finger out, put the boot in, and inflict a punishment appropriate for a repeat offender.

A kind of subject

So I use the Chrome browser and have done ever since it came out. It has a clean interface, it's beautifully simple to use and it's as fast as they claim; on those occasions when I open Firefox - for the "what does this look like in other browsers" test - I find myself drumming my fingers waiting for it to load.

I particularly like the Gmail desktop notifications that Google now support for their browser. I might as well comment on the online music business as to Google's use of HTML5, but what it has impressed on me is that slow move away from applications running on a desktop operating system, to those running on the web. At home I've recently found myself closing Outlook and keeping the browser open - and of course that's what Microsoft is afraid of.

The wild west

Desperate to find something to keep me occupied, after dropping the family off to see Joseph! at the Bristol Hippodrome (I wasn’t desperate enough to join them), I remembered there was a cinema entrenched within Cabot Circus. It had “de Lux” in the name, it was showing True Grit and best of all it had an online booking service - I wouldn’t have to talk to anyone.

But the online booking service wasn’t working so I took a chance with the 24 hour booking line; (I thought) all you have to do is press numbers. Alas, whilst that’s enough for Barclays it’s not enough to book a film and I was obliged to speak to the software on the other end. It was a short conversation:

Good afternoon and welcome… If, for example, you are calling for the Showcase cinema in Birmingham, simply say Birmingham, otherwise please say which Showcase cinema you are calling for.

Bristol.

I’m not sure if you mean the Showcase cinema in Cabots Circus, Bristol City centre or… Leeds.

Then I remembered I'd been using Chrome earlier; maybe I should try the old-timer, good old Internet Explorer, still good for something… and my ticket was booked.

All I needed was a cover story. It’s easier than explaining to Little Miss R why she can’t watch certain films, Black Swan was bad enough, and since she holds back from talking to people she doesn’t know - can’t imagine where she gets that from - I decided to meet a friend.

What’s his name?

Oh… ummm… Rooster Cogburn.

And then I added:

He probably looks a little different to how I remember.

Yet despite being a Coen brothers production, this new version is reassuringly familiar. It’s more subtle than I expected, the guys in black are mostly a shade of grey, and surviving, like the rest of us.

The changing face of the BBC

Some, admittedly enjoyable, mealy-mouthed nonsense from the BBC today; from a report on Iranian warships entering the Suez Canal on their way to the Mediterranean:

Israeli [sic] considers Iran a threat because of its controversial nuclear programme, development of ballistic missiles, support for Lebanese and Palestinian militant groups, and promises to destroy Israel.

It was at least an honest, albeit rushed, assessment; I particularly like how Iran’s well documented threat to 'wipe Israel off the map' is added almost as an afterthought. Later in the day, however, the report was amended to:

Israel considers Iran a threat because of its controversial nuclear programme, development of ballistic missiles, support for Lebanese and Palestinian militant groups, and Tehran's repeated anti-Israel rhetoric.

So “promises to destroy Israel” becomes “anti-Israel rhetoric”. You know, I’ve occasionally used anti-German rhetoric when they beat us at football (so every few years), but really...

You are here

Artist: Little Miss Ruse, aged nine.

What is the NHS?

Close to where I live sits a cottage hospital. I have no idea what services it provides, how many people use it or how much it costs. Nor I suspect does anyone else. Regardless, I am quite sure that were an attempt made to close it the whole community would be ‘up in arms’, and before asking any of these questions. Similarly, it reminds me of a discussion I had many years ago with a friend who opined that nurses deserved ‘far more’ than they were getting paid, without even knowing how much they were getting paid. I didn’t either, but you’d have thought one statement would be predicated by the other.

That’s the thing about the National Health Service, it seems to exist in a logic-free vacuum; our relation to the institution is entirely emotional and our love measured in how many hospitals we build to house the 1.7 million people in its service. As the NHS website tells us:

Only the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, the Wal-Mart supermarket chain and the Indian Railways directly employ more people.

They’re so proud of this it’s stated before the rather more relevant figure of how many patients they treat. It does at least explain the reaction of various Guardianistas to GP commissioning, where one concern would seem to be that GPs may on occasion choose private service providers because they’re… er… cheaper. This is apparently a bad thing; why, the next thing you know they’ll be closing state-funded hospitals in favour of privately run alternatives, and then how will we show our love?

I’m not for one instant suggesting the NHS should morph into a commission only service, we need an element of state provision to keep the private sector honest, but regardless of the provider, to the patient the service remains free - albeit paid for through tax. What kind of hospital he or she ends up in is irrelevant, all we should really care about is the cost. The cheaper it is, the more we can treat; now remind me, just who is the NHS for?

The best time of all

Not bad for three days. On the first I saw Black Swan, the next Atonement followed by Waterland, and on day three I finished with The Green Mile and The Road. Planning to watch Casablanca on Saturday evening, I commented to a friend how it was interesting that the film likely to have the most upbeat ending was one set against a backdrop of Nazi occupation and collaboration.

But I didn’t get to see Casablanca, my daughter took control of the television and I was banished to the PC upstairs, where I had to decrypt a region 1 DVD of American Beauty before I was able to play it. Together in the evening we watched Batman Begins; she loved every moment – a film not entirely suitable for a nine year old and shown well past her bedtime. Well... I won’t tell.

Why vegetarians are bad for AV

Fairness is often subjective, at least when it comes to electoral systems, so I am taken aback at the unquestioning ease with which the more ‘enthusiastic’ proponents of the alternative vote (AV) have appropriated the term. Ever contrary, I adapted an earlier example of how AV can lead to an unfair result, by using the dinner analogy popular with such support.

Imagine you are in a party of 21 and there are four restaurants within reach for a work-time lunch; in alphabetical order: Lentil Heaven, Liver Lounge, Pizza Palace and Thai Temptation.

One strange individual plumps for Liver Lounge and puts down Thai Temptation as his second preference. Nine people vote for Thai Temptation as their first choice; it subsequently turns out their second choice isn’t relevant - likewise for the seven people who choose Pizza Palace. The four people who remain are vegetarians, they’re cool; they don’t really care where they eat so long as they can avoid the liver.

That’s fair enough, and the best way to achieve this is a feature of AV that isn’t afforded by our current first-past-the-post (FPTP) system; the ability to vote against one option – by voting for all the others. In our example the vegetarians do exactly this, and since they don’t have a preference with the other options they rank them according to the order in which they are listed. This is called a donkey vote and whilst it is most common where full preferential voting is required, it applies equally here.

With the vote in, the count begins, and after the first round Liver Lounge, having the fewest votes, is eliminated. The next preference of that singular person is now added to the vote to give us the following: just over 47% of you would like a Thai, with around 33% opting for Pizza. It’s still not quite a majority so Lentil Heaven is eliminated… and something interesting happens. The ‘second preferences’ of the vegetarians are added to the count; those would be the people whose only real preference was to avoid the liver and who consequently voted for the other options in the order that they appeared - despite having significantly less of the ‘positive’ vote, Pizza Palace wins through having a superior position in the alphabet.

What this illustration and others show is how AV can work; the result - fair or otherwise - depends on how the example is framed. What this particular example shows is that under AV it's possible to have a result that many people would consider unfair; it's a system not quite as simple as some would have us believe.

More about Jane

Another of those odd moments last night, I was unable to sleep, something prompted by a recent conversation. Not entirely sure why it should keep me awake as it was about Jane Eyre, how having finally read the book after seeing so many adaptations I still had the same problem; Rochester’s betrayal of Jane and Jane’s subsequent forgiveness of Rochester. Why?

It was always the least satisfactory part, a moment where my commitment to the story would falter. I understood that she loved him but, again, why? Only by the narrowest of margins is he prevented from being the cause of her ruin. And I suppose I had a light bulb moment, though when I write it down I feel silly because it seems obvious; she forgives him because that’s what love is. Something I vaguely remember being taught as a child, but long since forgotten.

Hail, Zuckerberg!

From Augustus, first emperor of Rome, to Zuckerberg, first emperor of the social network. Is it coincidence that Mark Zuckerberg skipped studying for “Art in the time of Augustus” in order to build Facebook? Yes, of course it is, and a Google search reveals that Kari O’Brien (to name one) has already noticed the similarity in an earlier version of her blog, goddammit!

AV tombola

The Alternative Vote tombola (AVt) is a refinement of the Alternative Vote (AV) voting system proposed in a referendum for later this year. It too is a form of preferential voting where voters mark the candidates in order of preference; the first choice is marked “1”, the second choice “2” and so on.

To quote one proponent of AV when addressing the issue of complexity: “The electorate will not need to know how to count the votes”, but should you be interested the winner in an AVt system is decided as follows:

1. Each candidate is allocated a colour.
2. For every 1st preference vote a candidate is given ten tokens of their allocated colour, every 2nd preference vote receives eight tokens, 3rd preference receives six - all other preferences are assigned one token each.
3. When every vote has been counted, the accumulated tokens of each candidate are placed in a large tombola and a winner is chosen by a local celebrity.

Hence the alternative view that when evaluating a voting system, understanding how to vote is meaningless without an understanding of how your vote is counted.

As easy as ABC… or ACB… or BAC... or...

The Alternative Vote (AV), it is often argued, is a voting system that provides more data on the preferences of the voter as it requires the available candidates to be ranked in order of choice. However, though there is certainly more noise, I’m not convinced this equates to more information.

For example, I have four candidates, A, B, C and D. I like candidate A and I loathe candidate D; how should I vote? Bearing in mind that the form of AV proposed for the UK doesn’t require a full list of preferences, the answer (it would appear) is ABC… or ACB. It’s the “or” that interests me. Since there is no ‘equal ranking’ – I can’t rank B and C as joint second – I am forced to make an arbitrary choice solely for the purpose of voting against D; most likely it will be a donkey vote.

If candidate C fails to obtain a majority in the first round and candidate A is eliminated through having the fewest number of votes, my randomly chosen 2nd preference is now counted for those who remain. Whilst I achieve my aim of voting against D, is democracy best served if candidate C, with the most (1st choice) votes, loses out to candidate B through having an inferior position in the alphabet?

Further, it may seem counter-intuitive but a vote of ABC doesn’t necessarily mean a preference of A over B, and B over C; it might do, but the only inference we can make with certainty is that it is a vote against D. Somewhat perversely, in comparison to this “anyone but them” portrayal of AV, our current first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting system in lacking this ability could be seen as requiring the voter to concentrate on who they vote for, rather than who they vote against. FPTP at minimum requires a “least worst” decision from the voter whereas AV, in this example at least, abrogates the responsibility.