Some of you will have become accustomed to enjoying this blog in the first part of the week.
And some of that some of you might be wondering why I so rarely write anything here in the second half of the week.
But you might feel let down that nothing appeared yesterday. And today's entry is so short.
Rest assured - no calamity has befallen me.
I've been working. Real, proper (paid) work. And I still am.
Given that this is taking me less than five minutes to knock up (and I'll make up the time this evening, honest), I don't think we need to worry about my professionalism.
If you kind people would have a whip round and pay me my usual day-rate (price on application), I'll consider jacking in the other writing and entertaining you here full-time.
But, until that happy day comes, there will be days off. Like this one.
And I'm not explaining why I so rarely blog in the second half of the week. Those who know me will know already. And, for the rest of you, sorry!
P.S. If several hundred million of you you click on the ads then I might be able to eke a living from just writing this. Why not try it as an experiment?
Tuesday 20 May 2014
Wednesday 14 May 2014
Rubbish, trash, detritus and journalism
I was sitting in the waiting room. The dentist would see me next.
Another man was waiting. He was reading The Daily Rubbish. (I know, it's juvenile. But I've stopped giving links to lousy news outlets.)
All of a sudden - and I'm not sure if he was addressing me, the receptionist or himself - he declared that using a mobile phone for more than [who cares?] minutes per day can triple the risk of cancer.
Triple! That's bad - right?
Maybe.
I asked for the numbers. I confess, I engaged.
He didn't have them.
So we don't know the odds. Say the odds are one in a billion, give or take, er, one. Three times the risk would be three in a billion give or take three. I don't see the trebling as a problem.
If the odds were, say, one in ten - becoming three in ten - then I'd be concerned. But if that were genuinely the case, I'd expect to have seen more people keeling over by now.
Without the actual odds - with just the number the odds have been multiplied by - we have learned NOTHING. Sorry for shouting.
And, unless the survey included everyone who's ever lived on the face of the planet (which I think we can assume it didn't), then the numbers were calculated by choosing a group of people and assuming everyone's pretty much like them, on the whole. More or less.
Which means that there's some wiggle room in how accurate the numbers are. If the wiggle room is bigger than the number, then the number is MEANINGLESS. Sorry for shouting.
And if you don't know the numbers, the size of the wiggle room or the size of the group of people then all you know is how much bigger one MEANINGLESS number is than another MEANINGLESS number.
That's probably just going to give you a third meaningless number. You know, like that the risk of getting cancer from something has trebled.
Unemployment
There's a headline to excite people. (What follows is an example. These are not real numbers but they are broadly plausible and, with any luck, might be instrumental in making an interesting point.)
A survey has told us the percentage of people who work part-time but aren't looking for any more working hours. It's 68%. Is that a good statistic?
In my example scenario, one million people work part-time. And 68% of them don't want to work any more hours. Would you be pleased about that 68% figure? It's probably a high enough score to get a first-class honours degree.
But it would mean there are 320,000 people who are short of money because they don't have enough work.
Still think it's okay?
There's a time and a place for percentages. But when we're talking about suffering or financial instability for people, it's good to know just how many of them are being whacked round the head (figuratively, naturally).
End of maths lesson
But keep it in mind. Next time you see statistics, percentages and big numbers being wafted about as if they're important, try to work out what they actually mean. Often the answer is very little.
Another man was waiting. He was reading The Daily Rubbish. (I know, it's juvenile. But I've stopped giving links to lousy news outlets.)
All of a sudden - and I'm not sure if he was addressing me, the receptionist or himself - he declared that using a mobile phone for more than [who cares?] minutes per day can triple the risk of cancer.
Triple! That's bad - right?
Maybe.
I asked for the numbers. I confess, I engaged.
He didn't have them.
So we don't know the odds. Say the odds are one in a billion, give or take, er, one. Three times the risk would be three in a billion give or take three. I don't see the trebling as a problem.
If the odds were, say, one in ten - becoming three in ten - then I'd be concerned. But if that were genuinely the case, I'd expect to have seen more people keeling over by now.
Without the actual odds - with just the number the odds have been multiplied by - we have learned NOTHING. Sorry for shouting.
And, unless the survey included everyone who's ever lived on the face of the planet (which I think we can assume it didn't), then the numbers were calculated by choosing a group of people and assuming everyone's pretty much like them, on the whole. More or less.
Which means that there's some wiggle room in how accurate the numbers are. If the wiggle room is bigger than the number, then the number is MEANINGLESS. Sorry for shouting.
And if you don't know the numbers, the size of the wiggle room or the size of the group of people then all you know is how much bigger one MEANINGLESS number is than another MEANINGLESS number.
That's probably just going to give you a third meaningless number. You know, like that the risk of getting cancer from something has trebled.
Unemployment
There's a headline to excite people. (What follows is an example. These are not real numbers but they are broadly plausible and, with any luck, might be instrumental in making an interesting point.)
A survey has told us the percentage of people who work part-time but aren't looking for any more working hours. It's 68%. Is that a good statistic?
In my example scenario, one million people work part-time. And 68% of them don't want to work any more hours. Would you be pleased about that 68% figure? It's probably a high enough score to get a first-class honours degree.
But it would mean there are 320,000 people who are short of money because they don't have enough work.
Still think it's okay?
There's a time and a place for percentages. But when we're talking about suffering or financial instability for people, it's good to know just how many of them are being whacked round the head (figuratively, naturally).
End of maths lesson
But keep it in mind. Next time you see statistics, percentages and big numbers being wafted about as if they're important, try to work out what they actually mean. Often the answer is very little.
Tuesday 13 May 2014
Raiding the archive
It has recently come to my attention...
I was going to erase that opening but then I thought it was mildly amusing that my default setting this afternoon seems to be that of deputy headteacher about to hand out punishments for some crime or other.
Let's start again.
Being narcissistic, I was reading my recent articles, er, recently. And I noticed that, if you look at them on an Apple tablet, none of the embedded youTube videos work.
They don't tell you that they haven't worked. They just appear as a completely empty blank space as though the author was sent to sleep by his own writing and his head slumped on the 'return' key.
I can assure you that has not happened yet.
No, not yet. Here's what I think happened. Google has embedded the video as little boxes of Flash (you know, the saviour of the universe). And Apple has decided that it doesn't like Flash because, er, I've forgotten and who cares anyway. It was something about it crashing a lot and making their machines look bad.
Surely if I want to run rubbish software (which, incidentally, doesn't crash a lot on my PC or make it look bad), that's up to me? Maybe put a little bubble next to it saying "This is rubbish. We advise you not to use it. If you do and it's horrible, don't blame us."
But no. You can't have it. They know best.
Charlie Brooker
Charlie Brooker's excellent and generally wonderful series "Weekly Wipe" uses the cheeky device of pretending it's a six-episode series but then pulling a switcheroo and making episode six a compilation of the best bits of the previous five. You know, for those who've forgotten what they saw about a month ago and really want to watch it again now.
In tribute to him, here's an article I wrote about four years ago (get that, Charlie? YEARS! not weeks - YEARS!) about how Apple writes control-freak software.
I called it "Why Apple's iTunes is a demented butler who won't let you poach salmon in your dishwasher".
At about the time I wrote it and hawked it around a journal or two (actually it was one) who didn't want to publish it, Charlie himself wrote a (slightly) (all right, not very) similar article about Apple. I can't remember his. I'm not saying he copied me. Of course he didn't. He wouldn't have even seen mine.
And I joined Twitter to tell him about the hilarious similarity. Because, back then, I thought that was how Twitter worked.
That, in itself, slightly terrifies me. But I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now.
No, that wasn't a typo. It was simple plagiarism. A prize to the first person who can tell me where I stole it from and who can promise that they didn't just look it up on Google.
I was going to erase that opening but then I thought it was mildly amusing that my default setting this afternoon seems to be that of deputy headteacher about to hand out punishments for some crime or other.
Let's start again.
Being narcissistic, I was reading my recent articles, er, recently. And I noticed that, if you look at them on an Apple tablet, none of the embedded youTube videos work.
They don't tell you that they haven't worked. They just appear as a completely empty blank space as though the author was sent to sleep by his own writing and his head slumped on the 'return' key.
I can assure you that has not happened yet.
No, not yet. Here's what I think happened. Google has embedded the video as little boxes of Flash (you know, the saviour of the universe). And Apple has decided that it doesn't like Flash because, er, I've forgotten and who cares anyway. It was something about it crashing a lot and making their machines look bad.
Surely if I want to run rubbish software (which, incidentally, doesn't crash a lot on my PC or make it look bad), that's up to me? Maybe put a little bubble next to it saying "This is rubbish. We advise you not to use it. If you do and it's horrible, don't blame us."
But no. You can't have it. They know best.
Charlie Brooker
Charlie Brooker's excellent and generally wonderful series "Weekly Wipe" uses the cheeky device of pretending it's a six-episode series but then pulling a switcheroo and making episode six a compilation of the best bits of the previous five. You know, for those who've forgotten what they saw about a month ago and really want to watch it again now.
In tribute to him, here's an article I wrote about four years ago (get that, Charlie? YEARS! not weeks - YEARS!) about how Apple writes control-freak software.
I called it "Why Apple's iTunes is a demented butler who won't let you poach salmon in your dishwasher".
At about the time I wrote it and hawked it around a journal or two (actually it was one) who didn't want to publish it, Charlie himself wrote a (slightly) (all right, not very) similar article about Apple. I can't remember his. I'm not saying he copied me. Of course he didn't. He wouldn't have even seen mine.
And I joined Twitter to tell him about the hilarious similarity. Because, back then, I thought that was how Twitter worked.
That, in itself, slightly terrifies me. But I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now.
No, that wasn't a typo. It was simple plagiarism. A prize to the first person who can tell me where I stole it from and who can promise that they didn't just look it up on Google.
Monday 12 May 2014
What's in a name?
Following on from my acclaimed previous blog post (What's in a word?), I proudly present to you What's in a name?
Let's pretend, for a moment, that there's a truly great, prolific, much-loved, award-winning and popular author called Archibald Flange.
(A quick Google search suggests that I'm safe to do what I like with this name. However, if it is your name and you feel offended by what follows, then let me know and I'll come up with something even less likely.)
Archibald Flange
For reasons that are no one else's business, Archie has got fed up with the whole writing circus. He's simply not going to write any more. He's earned enough to make himself comfortable and his back catalogue continues to sell well enough to keep him in food, wine and spirits.
He's looking for mischief.
He's going to do the exact opposite of J K Rowling.
Fast forward
Let's go forward a couple of years. Without his usual blaze of publicity - anecdotes on chat shows, readings at book signings, shaking hands with the Pope, etc - Archie has a new book out. (It's really mine but don't tell anyone.)
He blames new hips for his reluctance to venture out.
The sales are great.
Maybe the numbers aren't as high as for his previous few books.
The critics note a change in style, a new direction. The fans buy it regardless. Some of the less fervent fans decide to sit it out and wait till they can get it from the library or borrow it from a friend or hear at least three of their mavens tell them they just have to buy it, darling.
I offer to pay Archie a percentage. He laughs and tells me not to be so stupid. He asks me when the next one is coming out. He hasn't told anyone. Even his agent doesn't know.
Of course, this means that I have to be paid by Archie but that's no problem for him. Means I get a bit less because he's in a higher tax bracket but I'd rather have 60% of the royalties for my book with his name on the cover than 100% of the royalties for my book with my name on the cover.
How about my place in history? Ask me in ten years.
Would I be that mercenary?
Yes.
Anything else?
Dear Reader, would you feel cheated if you thought you'd bought Flange and got Tarnofsky? Even if you liked it?
What are the rules of adopting pen names? There must be plenty of examples of authors who genuinely have the same name - and someone must have accidentally adopted a famous pen name at some point.
It must be to do with the intention.
Maybe so - but why is misleading someone any better if you didn't know you were doing it?
I've been told that my short stories are reminiscent of the work of bestselling author Etgar Keret.
I would not do this
If I republished my short stories under the pen-name Etgar Keret (I really WOULD NOT do this) - and people bought them, and liked them, and thought that he'd written a really super collection of stories, then what harm has been done?
Plenty, clearly. Deliberate misleading of readers, potentially tarnishing Mr Keret's blameless and hard-earned good name.
It just feels wrong. But who has been harmed? People buying short stories that they thought they would like got short stories that they liked.
But I still wouldn't do it. It would feel like cheating.
What ever happened to Polaroid?
Was that too sudden a change in direction? Stay with me. I'll draw it together.
Polaroid was a world-famous, well-respected company for many years. They made instant cameras. (If you're under 25, you may wonder what I'm talking about. Try Wikipedia.)
Digital photography killed off their core business and the company was in various death throes for a while. It still hasn't died but its name has been sold off to be used on all sorts of ventures.
I have in my hand the box of a Polaroid light bulb. It says 'Polaroid' on the box and has their logo and contained one of the worst built light bulbs that I personally have ever had the misfortune to put into a light fitting. Yes, it came apart. You really don't want that from a light bulb.
A company which has been making high quality stuff for many decades - you'd trust them to know how to make a good light bulb. I mean - a light bulb! How hard can it be to churn these out? They're not exactly new technology. And this one was an old-fashioned hot bit of wire in a glass shell. The sort that Thomas Edison would have recognised.
His might have been better than this one.
But a company you've never heard of - would you buy their bulb? Instead of Phillips or Osram? Really?
I guess that's why they bought the right to use the word Polaroid.
I'm not accusing anyone of wrongdoing. They bought the name - they're entitled to use it. But maybe, just maybe, some people don't quite get what they're expecting.
So if I did the thing I said I wouldn't do...
...then I certainly wouldn't be the first. Hey Etgar - what percentage would you want? I'll have my people talk to your people.
(Suggestions for future episodes in the series are welcome. At the moment, I can only think of What's in a packet of crisps? - which, I think you'll agree, is unlikely to be of the same standard.)
Let's pretend, for a moment, that there's a truly great, prolific, much-loved, award-winning and popular author called Archibald Flange.
(A quick Google search suggests that I'm safe to do what I like with this name. However, if it is your name and you feel offended by what follows, then let me know and I'll come up with something even less likely.)
Archibald Flange
For reasons that are no one else's business, Archie has got fed up with the whole writing circus. He's simply not going to write any more. He's earned enough to make himself comfortable and his back catalogue continues to sell well enough to keep him in food, wine and spirits.
He's looking for mischief.
He's going to do the exact opposite of J K Rowling.
She used the pen name Robert Galbraith to see whether her writing would sell without her real name on it. Turned out it did. Not in earth-shattering numbers, but very respectably for the genre. (Of course, then the cat tore its way out of the bag, at which point some serious print runs were needed.)Archie is going to allow me to use his name for my next book. Thank you, Archie.
Fast forward
Let's go forward a couple of years. Without his usual blaze of publicity - anecdotes on chat shows, readings at book signings, shaking hands with the Pope, etc - Archie has a new book out. (It's really mine but don't tell anyone.)
He blames new hips for his reluctance to venture out.
The sales are great.
Maybe the numbers aren't as high as for his previous few books.
The critics note a change in style, a new direction. The fans buy it regardless. Some of the less fervent fans decide to sit it out and wait till they can get it from the library or borrow it from a friend or hear at least three of their mavens tell them they just have to buy it, darling.
I offer to pay Archie a percentage. He laughs and tells me not to be so stupid. He asks me when the next one is coming out. He hasn't told anyone. Even his agent doesn't know.
Of course, this means that I have to be paid by Archie but that's no problem for him. Means I get a bit less because he's in a higher tax bracket but I'd rather have 60% of the royalties for my book with his name on the cover than 100% of the royalties for my book with my name on the cover.
How about my place in history? Ask me in ten years.
Would I be that mercenary?
Yes.
Anything else?
Dear Reader, would you feel cheated if you thought you'd bought Flange and got Tarnofsky? Even if you liked it?
What are the rules of adopting pen names? There must be plenty of examples of authors who genuinely have the same name - and someone must have accidentally adopted a famous pen name at some point.
It must be to do with the intention.
Maybe so - but why is misleading someone any better if you didn't know you were doing it?
I've been told that my short stories are reminiscent of the work of bestselling author Etgar Keret.
I would not do this
If I republished my short stories under the pen-name Etgar Keret (I really WOULD NOT do this) - and people bought them, and liked them, and thought that he'd written a really super collection of stories, then what harm has been done?
Plenty, clearly. Deliberate misleading of readers, potentially tarnishing Mr Keret's blameless and hard-earned good name.
It just feels wrong. But who has been harmed? People buying short stories that they thought they would like got short stories that they liked.
But I still wouldn't do it. It would feel like cheating.
What ever happened to Polaroid?
Was that too sudden a change in direction? Stay with me. I'll draw it together.
Polaroid was a world-famous, well-respected company for many years. They made instant cameras. (If you're under 25, you may wonder what I'm talking about. Try Wikipedia.)
Digital photography killed off their core business and the company was in various death throes for a while. It still hasn't died but its name has been sold off to be used on all sorts of ventures.
I have in my hand the box of a Polaroid light bulb. It says 'Polaroid' on the box and has their logo and contained one of the worst built light bulbs that I personally have ever had the misfortune to put into a light fitting. Yes, it came apart. You really don't want that from a light bulb.
A company which has been making high quality stuff for many decades - you'd trust them to know how to make a good light bulb. I mean - a light bulb! How hard can it be to churn these out? They're not exactly new technology. And this one was an old-fashioned hot bit of wire in a glass shell. The sort that Thomas Edison would have recognised.
His might have been better than this one.
But a company you've never heard of - would you buy their bulb? Instead of Phillips or Osram? Really?
I guess that's why they bought the right to use the word Polaroid.
I'm not accusing anyone of wrongdoing. They bought the name - they're entitled to use it. But maybe, just maybe, some people don't quite get what they're expecting.
So if I did the thing I said I wouldn't do...
...then I certainly wouldn't be the first. Hey Etgar - what percentage would you want? I'll have my people talk to your people.
Sunday 11 May 2014
What's in a word?
Last week, the Daily Mirror proudly trumpeted the footage it had obtained of Jeremy Clarkson using language so abhorrent that, apparently, he should be sacked. I'm not going to link to the article because I don't want to give their website the hits.
He was using the old nursery rhyme that begins 'Eeny meeny miney mo, catch a...', except he mumbled the second line, except his mumble wasn't mumbly enough so the next word was all too obvious.
(The word begins with 'n' and is an anagram of 'ginger'.)
This footage was never broadcast. The team at the BBC (including the possibly reproachable Jeremy Clarkson) decided that (a) it wasn't funny and (b) the unmentionable word was too clear. So they reshot it with him not mumbling and this time saying 'catch a teacher by the toe'.
It's still not funny but clearly a better choice by a hugely vast margin.
Sadly for all concerned, the unused out-take was leaked to the Daily Mirror. Or, to put it another way, it was stolen and passed on to another company for them to (a) make a profit by selling newspapers and (b) cause great damage to a rival institution. It's currently unknown whether the thief was paid.
It strikes me, in my opinion (and other opinions are, of course, valid and worthy) that there are two interpretations of this footage.
1) Mr Clarkson is a hideous racist who thought it would be hilariously funny to hide inflammatory language behind a thin veil of mumbling, as though the BBC hadn't suffered enough already from the mumbling in Jamaica Inn.
2) Mr Clarkson is a cheeky chap who likes to push at the boundaries. But, when he tried pushing this particular boundary, he found out how far he was prepared to push and it simply wasn't that far. So they binned the idea, shot something else and forgot about it.
Personally, I'd go with option 2.
I'm not defending the use of this sort of language. But I'm not defending the theft of footage either. And I'm not impressed that someone can decide not to do something that's rude but still be castigated for considering and rejecting it. This was never broadcast. This was never meant for broadcast.
Just imagine this for a moment...
Imagine you're writing a document at work. Someone has annoyed you. So, in the middle of one of the paragraphs that you think no one will ever read, you write something unspeakably rude about them. You look at it. Turns out it's not particularly funny anyway. There's still a chance that someone will read item 497.23 in the terms and conditions. So you erase it. No harm done.
Next day you've been sacked because someone managed to obtain a copy of the document at just the wrong moment. You're not sure how they got it. Maybe the computer automatically backed it up onto the company's server and they grabbed it at that point. It only existed for a moment. It should never have gone any further than your PC. But, you're told, that's irrelevant.
Other than the fact that the story about Jeremy Clarkson contains some of the most inflammatory language one can use (and yet which Quentin Tarantino freely sprinkles over so much of his films' dialogue), is this situation significantly different?
He was using the old nursery rhyme that begins 'Eeny meeny miney mo, catch a...', except he mumbled the second line, except his mumble wasn't mumbly enough so the next word was all too obvious.
(The word begins with 'n' and is an anagram of 'ginger'.)
It's still not funny but clearly a better choice by a hugely vast margin.
Sadly for all concerned, the unused out-take was leaked to the Daily Mirror. Or, to put it another way, it was stolen and passed on to another company for them to (a) make a profit by selling newspapers and (b) cause great damage to a rival institution. It's currently unknown whether the thief was paid.
It strikes me, in my opinion (and other opinions are, of course, valid and worthy) that there are two interpretations of this footage.
1) Mr Clarkson is a hideous racist who thought it would be hilariously funny to hide inflammatory language behind a thin veil of mumbling, as though the BBC hadn't suffered enough already from the mumbling in Jamaica Inn.
2) Mr Clarkson is a cheeky chap who likes to push at the boundaries. But, when he tried pushing this particular boundary, he found out how far he was prepared to push and it simply wasn't that far. So they binned the idea, shot something else and forgot about it.
Personally, I'd go with option 2.
I'm not defending the use of this sort of language. But I'm not defending the theft of footage either. And I'm not impressed that someone can decide not to do something that's rude but still be castigated for considering and rejecting it. This was never broadcast. This was never meant for broadcast.
Just imagine this for a moment...
Imagine you're writing a document at work. Someone has annoyed you. So, in the middle of one of the paragraphs that you think no one will ever read, you write something unspeakably rude about them. You look at it. Turns out it's not particularly funny anyway. There's still a chance that someone will read item 497.23 in the terms and conditions. So you erase it. No harm done.
Next day you've been sacked because someone managed to obtain a copy of the document at just the wrong moment. You're not sure how they got it. Maybe the computer automatically backed it up onto the company's server and they grabbed it at that point. It only existed for a moment. It should never have gone any further than your PC. But, you're told, that's irrelevant.
Other than the fact that the story about Jeremy Clarkson contains some of the most inflammatory language one can use (and yet which Quentin Tarantino freely sprinkles over so much of his films' dialogue), is this situation significantly different?
Thursday 8 May 2014
Don't be boring - you'll start us snoring
Yesterday an actor playing Nick Clegg
Was shrunk to the size of a clothes peg
And looked just like a silly old prat
When chased around by Socks the cat.
But hang on, wait a minute here,
Why do you patronise us, dear?
A party political broadcast
Should nail its colours to the mast.
That satire wasn't even funny
I'd rather know what you'd do with our money.
What are your plans for the NHS?
How will you extract it from this mess?
More austerity? Less income tax?
Are benefits tests too strong? Too lax?
The roads, the buses, the bikes, the trains -
Do they get funding? How about planes?
And what do you plan to do with schools?
Free schools run by any old fools?
With more red tape till teachers down tools?
I'm not averse to a bit of mirth
But saw your film and thought 'what on earth?'
You chose not to tell us what you'd do
And pretty much just said 'Clegg's a poo'.
I apologise - not for my wonderful verse, but for giving more attention to this pathetic attempt at a 'funny' political broadcast.
Regardless of your political views, wouldn't it be refreshing if politicians could actually debate the issues? An approach like this video makes me long for the halcyon days of people just throwing meaningless soundbites at each other.
Would it be boring to make a video in which a personable speaker explained the issues and said what his/her party was going to do about it?
Was shrunk to the size of a clothes peg
And looked just like a silly old prat
When chased around by Socks the cat.
But hang on, wait a minute here,
Why do you patronise us, dear?
A party political broadcast
Should nail its colours to the mast.
That satire wasn't even funny
I'd rather know what you'd do with our money.
What are your plans for the NHS?
How will you extract it from this mess?
More austerity? Less income tax?
Are benefits tests too strong? Too lax?
The roads, the buses, the bikes, the trains -
Do they get funding? How about planes?
And what do you plan to do with schools?
Free schools run by any old fools?
With more red tape till teachers down tools?
I'm not averse to a bit of mirth
But saw your film and thought 'what on earth?'
You chose not to tell us what you'd do
And pretty much just said 'Clegg's a poo'.
I apologise - not for my wonderful verse, but for giving more attention to this pathetic attempt at a 'funny' political broadcast.
Regardless of your political views, wouldn't it be refreshing if politicians could actually debate the issues? An approach like this video makes me long for the halcyon days of people just throwing meaningless soundbites at each other.
Would it be boring to make a video in which a personable speaker explained the issues and said what his/her party was going to do about it?
Wednesday 7 May 2014
Look at this! It's extraordinary and, er, great and, well, something else
Look at me! Look at me! Look at my work! Derive entertainment, damn you!
It's difficult to get attention. You knew that already. I need to come up with something better or you'll go away.
Some of you didn't even get this far.
How about insults? I could be unnecessarily rude about someone famous in the hope of grabbing some attention.
I sorta tried that except (1) it wasn't unnecessarily rude and (2) it didn't get much attention and (3) I didn't gain from it spiritually, morally or financially.
More positive approach
I've been writing thoughts inspired by the news recently and some people are definitely clicking on them.
I don't know if people are reading them. Are you?
No one is commenting (even when I suggest easy comments they could make) or emailing me with thoughts. (Or buying my books but that's a whole other thing.)
I'm not writing anything that might make anyone cross or litigious. Mostly because I don't feel that way. But yes, there's a little bit of fear of consequences thrown in. There's all sorts of scary stuff in the news (especially outside the UK) and even my reasonable, liberal, live-and-let-live views would probably wind someone up. I wouldn't want that. They might be mean.
I'd insult the British government but where's the sport in booting something into their open goal?
So how do I get attention? How do I expand my readership?
Who are you and why are you reading this now? How many people do you know who might read it too? TELL THEM! OR TELL ME!
Give me comments after the article. Tell me there's someone there.
Or I'll start randomly criticising semi-famous people again.
P.S.
Since writing the above, I was unnecessarily rude to an abstract concept! I successfully teased a playful rejoinder from a real celebrity - yes, I got my name into a whole tweet from Gareth Malone OBE.
With any luck, that won't be the only such tale I'll be telling my grandchildren if and when they bother to turn up. Here is the exchange in all its glory:
Weekend Kitchen @WkndKitchen This weekend on #weekendkitchen @SteveJones & @Lisa_Snowdon will be joined by @GarethMalone @Palomafaith & chef @AngelaHartnett
Peter Tarnofsky @PeterTarnofsky @WkndKitchen @GarethMalone @SteveJones @Lisa_Snowdon @Palomafaith @AngelaHartnett Singing guests outnumber cooking guests. Need new title.
Gareth Malone OBE @GarethMalone @PeterTarnofsky @WkndKitchen @SteveJones @Lisa_Snowdon @Palomafaith @AngelaHartnett Yes but I'm a demon with a garlic press.
Peter Tarnofsky @PeterTarnofsky @GarethMalone @WkndKitchen @SteveJones @Lisa_Snowdon @Palomafaith @AngelaHartnett Tell us something we couldn't have guessed.
...and there,sadly, the wit and repartee ended. If a late reply turns up I will, of course, add it to this blog post.
It's difficult to get attention. You knew that already. I need to come up with something better or you'll go away.
Some of you didn't even get this far.
How about insults? I could be unnecessarily rude about someone famous in the hope of grabbing some attention.
I sorta tried that except (1) it wasn't unnecessarily rude and (2) it didn't get much attention and (3) I didn't gain from it spiritually, morally or financially.
More positive approach
I've been writing thoughts inspired by the news recently and some people are definitely clicking on them.
I don't know if people are reading them. Are you?
No one is commenting (even when I suggest easy comments they could make) or emailing me with thoughts. (Or buying my books but that's a whole other thing.)
I'm not writing anything that might make anyone cross or litigious. Mostly because I don't feel that way. But yes, there's a little bit of fear of consequences thrown in. There's all sorts of scary stuff in the news (especially outside the UK) and even my reasonable, liberal, live-and-let-live views would probably wind someone up. I wouldn't want that. They might be mean.
I'd insult the British government but where's the sport in booting something into their open goal?
So how do I get attention? How do I expand my readership?
Who are you and why are you reading this now? How many people do you know who might read it too? TELL THEM! OR TELL ME!
Give me comments after the article. Tell me there's someone there.
Or I'll start randomly criticising semi-famous people again.
P.S.
Since writing the above, I was unnecessarily rude to an abstract concept! I successfully teased a playful rejoinder from a real celebrity - yes, I got my name into a whole tweet from Gareth Malone OBE.
With any luck, that won't be the only such tale I'll be telling my grandchildren if and when they bother to turn up. Here is the exchange in all its glory:
Weekend Kitchen @WkndKitchen This weekend on #weekendkitchen @SteveJones & @Lisa_Snowdon will be joined by @GarethMalone @Palomafaith & chef @AngelaHartnett
Peter Tarnofsky @PeterTarnofsky @WkndKitchen @GarethMalone @SteveJones @Lisa_Snowdon @Palomafaith @AngelaHartnett Singing guests outnumber cooking guests. Need new title.
Gareth Malone OBE @GarethMalone @PeterTarnofsky @WkndKitchen @SteveJones @Lisa_Snowdon @Palomafaith @AngelaHartnett Yes but I'm a demon with a garlic press.
Peter Tarnofsky @PeterTarnofsky @GarethMalone @WkndKitchen @SteveJones @Lisa_Snowdon @Palomafaith @AngelaHartnett Tell us something we couldn't have guessed.
...and there,sadly, the wit and repartee ended. If a late reply turns up I will, of course, add it to this blog post.
Tuesday 6 May 2014
Presumption of guilt and disproportionate punishment
According to the Guardian last Saturday, someone nearly ended up with a criminal record over accidentally paying 55p too little for a train fare.
Here's the article.
None of this is particularly new. Stories like this about railway companies are fairly common. But get a load of the comments after the article...
A good proportion of them assume intent (and therefore guilt) - and some of them go on to assume that this person has been doing it for a prolongued period of time and, clearly, would have continued to defraud the railways if they hadn't been caught. All those 55ps can add up, you know.
I didn't reach that conclusion myself. But, hey, we're all entitled to our own opinions.
It reminds me of my jury service
No, officer, stand down, there's no need to arrest me for contempt of court. Nothing I have written or am about to write concerns what happened in the courtroom or in the jury-room.
Before I turned up on my first day, a line from some comedy (don't ask me which one) went through my head. "If he's not guilty of that, then he's probably guilty of something else so stick him in prison anyway."
That is, naturally, not the way I behaved. I believe I served the judicial process to the best of my ability and blah blah blah (insert whatever else it is one is supposed to write about the whole business).
Back to trains
Many years ago, I regularly bought a season ticket for my train journey to work. Normally they lasted for a month. That's a calendar month. (Is there another sort?)
If the ticket was due to expire on a Friday and I was certain I wouldn't need to travel over the weekend, I'd ask for the next ticket to begin on the Monday. Maybe the two days would be more useful at the other end of the month.
One time, despite clearly asking for this, the man at the ticket office issued a ticket which started the next day. In other words, he accidentally deprived me of two potential days of travel bliss. At the time it was probably worth about £15.
I pointed that out to him. He refused to change it.
Goodness me, we're down the rabbit hole now. It's moved from accidental to deliberate. This man is in a whole different league from the 55p traveller.
I was young, I was in a hurry, I thought I probably wouldn't use the two days at the other end of the month either - to be honest, I can't remember why I didn't insist. Maybe life just felt too short. Anyway, he finally grudgingly offered me a concession.
He took out his biro and wrote "ADD TWO DAYS. STAN." on the back. (His name wasn't Stan but, for some reason, I'm allowing him a pseudonym. Maybe I'm afraid of being sued for libel, bearing in mind the legal fees, removal of any meaningful form of legal aid, etc.)
I didn't try to use this as a rail ticket beyond the printed date. I think we can guess what would have happened.
But if you decide to give it a go (and I'M NOT SAYING YOU SHOULD OR THAT IT'S A GOOD IDEA OR THAT STAN IS THE RIGHT NAME), try writing something like that on the back of your ticket. Let us know how you get on.
Let the punishment dramatically exceed the severity of the crime
The 55p person was allowed the generous settlement of £31 to make the whole sordid business go away. The punishment, in other words, was about sixty times the size of the accidental shortfall.
Bearing that in mind, my railway company should pay me £900.
Hey, First Capital Connect - how about it?
In Roman times, the story goes that if anyone in the empire killed a Roman citizen, ten people from the local village would be executed. (They probably would have said that making it 60 would have been unreasonable.) As far as disproportionate punishments go, even a low factor of 10 is pretty good and would certainly discourage people from attacking anyone who looked like they might wear a toga at home.
(I should point out that I learned that from an episode of the West Wing so it might not be entirely historically accurate. But the principle stands.)
Perhaps we could have a less proportionate system of retribution built into the justice system. Stayed five minutes too long in a parking bay? Have a £120 fine for non-payment of £4.
Oh. Seems it's already happening.
Staying with motoring, how about... Been driving at 75mph in a 70mph zone? Well, 5x60=300 so we'll fire you out of a cannon at 375mph and see how you like it.
Sorry - was that silly? Sillier than messing up someone's entire life with a criminal record over a debt of 55p?
Here's the article.
None of this is particularly new. Stories like this about railway companies are fairly common. But get a load of the comments after the article...
A good proportion of them assume intent (and therefore guilt) - and some of them go on to assume that this person has been doing it for a prolongued period of time and, clearly, would have continued to defraud the railways if they hadn't been caught. All those 55ps can add up, you know.
I didn't reach that conclusion myself. But, hey, we're all entitled to our own opinions.
It reminds me of my jury service
No, officer, stand down, there's no need to arrest me for contempt of court. Nothing I have written or am about to write concerns what happened in the courtroom or in the jury-room.
Before I turned up on my first day, a line from some comedy (don't ask me which one) went through my head. "If he's not guilty of that, then he's probably guilty of something else so stick him in prison anyway."
That is, naturally, not the way I behaved. I believe I served the judicial process to the best of my ability and blah blah blah (insert whatever else it is one is supposed to write about the whole business).
Back to trains
Many years ago, I regularly bought a season ticket for my train journey to work. Normally they lasted for a month. That's a calendar month. (Is there another sort?)
If the ticket was due to expire on a Friday and I was certain I wouldn't need to travel over the weekend, I'd ask for the next ticket to begin on the Monday. Maybe the two days would be more useful at the other end of the month.
One time, despite clearly asking for this, the man at the ticket office issued a ticket which started the next day. In other words, he accidentally deprived me of two potential days of travel bliss. At the time it was probably worth about £15.
I pointed that out to him. He refused to change it.
Goodness me, we're down the rabbit hole now. It's moved from accidental to deliberate. This man is in a whole different league from the 55p traveller.
I was young, I was in a hurry, I thought I probably wouldn't use the two days at the other end of the month either - to be honest, I can't remember why I didn't insist. Maybe life just felt too short. Anyway, he finally grudgingly offered me a concession.
He took out his biro and wrote "ADD TWO DAYS. STAN." on the back. (His name wasn't Stan but, for some reason, I'm allowing him a pseudonym. Maybe I'm afraid of being sued for libel, bearing in mind the legal fees, removal of any meaningful form of legal aid, etc.)
I didn't try to use this as a rail ticket beyond the printed date. I think we can guess what would have happened.
But if you decide to give it a go (and I'M NOT SAYING YOU SHOULD OR THAT IT'S A GOOD IDEA OR THAT STAN IS THE RIGHT NAME), try writing something like that on the back of your ticket. Let us know how you get on.
Let the punishment dramatically exceed the severity of the crime
The 55p person was allowed the generous settlement of £31 to make the whole sordid business go away. The punishment, in other words, was about sixty times the size of the accidental shortfall.
Bearing that in mind, my railway company should pay me £900.
Hey, First Capital Connect - how about it?
In Roman times, the story goes that if anyone in the empire killed a Roman citizen, ten people from the local village would be executed. (They probably would have said that making it 60 would have been unreasonable.) As far as disproportionate punishments go, even a low factor of 10 is pretty good and would certainly discourage people from attacking anyone who looked like they might wear a toga at home.
(I should point out that I learned that from an episode of the West Wing so it might not be entirely historically accurate. But the principle stands.)
Perhaps we could have a less proportionate system of retribution built into the justice system. Stayed five minutes too long in a parking bay? Have a £120 fine for non-payment of £4.
Oh. Seems it's already happening.
Staying with motoring, how about... Been driving at 75mph in a 70mph zone? Well, 5x60=300 so we'll fire you out of a cannon at 375mph and see how you like it.
Sorry - was that silly? Sillier than messing up someone's entire life with a criminal record over a debt of 55p?
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