Short what?

I sat next to an engaging gentleman from Wales on my flight from London to Bangkok. We chatted for much of our waking time on the 11 hour flight.

As we got off the plane he said, I hadn't appreciated just how tall you are ... 

A bit later, as we walked to passport control, height came up again and I said, Well, it will be a dark day for someone if you get to call them short house! He found that funny. He's 5 feet 7 or thereabouts!

DW

Why no sign up

Hello to you!

I have had a blog for 20 years, if not more. I used to have a very busy blog that was managed by an organisation with a wacky name that had something to do with an animal. Then one night, they disappeared without warning and took all of my blog posts with them. There was nothing earth shattering there but I would have liked to have been given the chance to save them all.

I then started this blog using Blogger a number of years ago and here I still am although I don't post here anywhere near as prolifically as I did on the other blog. I post her, on twitter, Facebook, Quora and on The Times comments forum.

Now, why did I write this? Just a few weeks ago I realised that no one was signing up to my blog because I didn't have a sign up button or anything like it. I couldn't believe that. I used to have but never noticed it had gone. I have no idea when it went or why.

So, here is your chance to sign up and follow me. By rights, I should have hundreds, if not thousands of followers. After all, my chats here are fun and my business stuff is high quality and it is all free.

Please sign up and join the throng and if ever you ask me a question, I will answer it.

Best wishes and looking forward to seeing your sign up email.

DW

6th November 2022

Repaired the Wardrobe: nailed it!

We moved house, from Isan to Prachuap Kiri Khan and we took some of our furniture with us. Since we are renting this house, we kept some of their furniture, including a wardrobe.

I did a few repairs to a bookshelf we brought with us and that went well. So, onto the wardrobe.

We worked as a team of two to hold the frame square as we hammered in the panel pins that held the back boards in place that, in turn, strengthen the whole piece.

We did a good job and we ended up with a sturdy, albeit IKEA style, chipboard cheap looking thing. It's functional.

I am starting a work trip so it was time to gather shirts, ties, trousers, suit: that order.

I got to the suit jacket and felt some resistance as I tried to take it out. It wouldn't move. I thought we'd just nipped it between the frame and the back board. We did nip it. More than that not only nipped but nailed. Two panel pins had been driven through a sleeve that had been nipped as we did our work!

It took us 10 to 15 minutes to extricate the thing and there are two pin holes in one of the sleeves and a pin hole in the edge at the back of it.

Hey ho! Ever done that?

DW

5th November 2022

HM the Queen

My Brief Reflections

We have just witnessed the death and burial of HM Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland. When her death came it was swift and largely expected. The period of national mourning befitting of such a monarch was appropriate, in my opinion.

What we have lost is a monarch who was driven by duty: based on a promise she made in 1947 to serve us for her entire life. And that is what she did.

The funeral was a typically British affair: a success by any standards. Billions of people around the world are said to have watched the funeral, let alone the lying in state. We were treated to a ceremony that no one else on the planet can conceive, plan and carry out so well. I am not being boastful about that and I am sure I am not wrong in my assertion.

Prince Charles has become King Charles III and I wish him well in his new role.

The Naysayers

I was brought up at a time when we would hear the phrase, "It's a free country" on a daily basis. It was, too! We had freedom of thought and freedom of speech: we could think and say what we liked. That is not so true today as everyone questions our right to say much of what we believe and say. To some extent that is good because we are forced to think more carefully about some issues whereas before, we would just blurt it all out.

However, at a time of national mourning, large numbers of people have crawled out of the woodwork to pour scorn on the notion of a monarchy, the legacy of the Queen, the costs of supporting the monarchy and so on.

Many of the comments were just parroting: someone merely repeating what someone else said, however ludicrous that might have been. Other comments were more considered and they stemmed from sincerely held views on the monarchy, republicanism and so on. Nothing wrong with anyone having and expressing such views.

Prof Mauro Guillen

Then we come to the argument about the true benefit of the monarchy and I like to point to the work of Prof Mauro Guillen in this respect. Guillen has researched the benefits of having a monarchy. In essence, what he found, from a study of almost 137 countries over 110 years, is that we are all financially and socially better off under a monarchy. Average GDP per capita is higher under a monarchy. political systems under a constitutional monarchy, like the UK, are more conducive to a better life under a constitutional monarchy.

I am grossly simplifying what Prof Guillen found and said but before we fight for a republic and install the nonsense that they can bring, do consider where we might be about to throw out the baby with the bath water. Read about Prof Guillen's work here. There is a link to a YouTube video dedicated to Prof Guillen's study.

DW

22/9/2022

Ashamed of UK Politicians?

I know there are millions of people in and from the UK who support the current government and who will be happy with the new Prime Minister and their administration.

Right thinking people, on the other hand, know that 12 years of their rule have been and are a disaster.

The new PM, whoever it will be, has proven at their hustings that they are already a disaster waiting to happen.

They burble on with their unresearched nonsense, they invent policies on the fly, they talk in presidential terms rather than in parliamentary terms.

The UK is in for a very bumpy ride and I am aware that you might not be sorry about that at all.

DW

6/8/2022

Diseased World

Diseases Ruling the World?

I know that there have always been diseases: viruses, bacteria and things that go bump in the night. I do wonder about the evolution of these things, of course: why are they here? Like humans, I suppose, they are on an evolutionary path and, like humans, they just get on with it surviving and evolving. I also suppose it is chance that when they latch onto a person they wreak havoc or they usually have a small and short lived life ... but be careful as that is not always true.

Anyway, we are still getting over the Covid-19 pandemic and up pops monkeypox: I don't know a lot about it but it is transmitted, so far, in a particular way and it is getting some attention from the public health community.

Here in Thailand, a non Thai man tested positive for monkeypox a couple of weeks ago and, rather than seeking treatment, he ran away. Why run away when there is treatment available? Well, he ran as far as Phnom Penh, which is well removed from Bangkok and was caught. In the meantime, was anyone else infected by him?

Now, we have Hand, Foot And Mouth Disease here. A friend of my daughter got it 10 days or so ago. On Tuesday of this week, youngest daughter was at nursery when she came down with a fever ... the mother suspected HF and M and the doctor confirmed it. She caught it from a different source to my other daughter's friend!

HF and M comes from the coxsackie virus for which there is no cure but it is normally short lived albeit unpleasant. Fever, listlessness, pain, lack of appetite, then mouth and throat sores, spots on the hands, feet and legs. Children are more susceptible to HF and M and last night our son seems to have developed a fever ... it's almost time to wake him up but I checked him around 4 am and he was still hot.

Take care everyone.

DW

4/8/2022

Travelling Again

After a gap of 885 days, i have started travelling again. For a nomad like me, being trapped for so long was getting to be torture. 

So far, Dubai, Bangkok, Muscat and Dubai. Next destination yet to be confirmed but it wont be long.

Happy tramping, everyone

DW

me, me, me ... I'm first

Power BI is Microsoft software that can be completely free of charge, eg PBI for the Desktop and it is updated every 4 to 6 weeks or so.

Because of social media and the effects of the pandemic, these days there is often a scramble by some people to be seen to be the first to announce their new video or blog page on a new feature.

A lot of the videos and articles are good and useful but yesterday, we witnessed something weird whereby someone tweeted that he'd just seen a new feature, had spent 10 minutes reviewing it and he had thrown together a video to show it. He said, he was excited by it but that as he had spent just 10 minutes on it, he could well be wrong so he careful with what he says.

I watched the video and he told how cool and awesome the feature was and that he'd spent just 10 minutes learning it ...

It looks useful but my PBI has not got that update yet so I couldn't evaluate his work.

I think he has made a fool of himself but, hey: he was first in!

DW

17 May 2022

Excel Statistical Analysis: Quality of Life Analysis

Step by step review of how to analyse data

9 data series, correlation matrix, descriptive statistics, histograms and scattergraphs

Video details - YouTube Studio

Clustering in Power BI

 A review of the clustering process in Power BI: how to do it and some of what it means

Video details - YouTube Studio

An Unusual Excel Table Improved by Power Query

Happy New Year 2022

 Thousands of you visit this blog even though almost no one is a member but let me wish everyone a happy new year 2022 and let's all wish for a much better year than the previous two years.

DW

01012022

covid Jab Two

I had my second anti covid-19 jab today and it took a lot less time than before. All went well, however.

A bit of drama as I waited to be released after the jab. An extension cable shorted out with a bang and burst into flames just a few metres from me. They switched off the power going to it but then a plastic sign caught fire. They brought out a fire extinguisher and put the fire out very easily.

Extension cables in Thailand ... every house seems to have them trailing everywhere and in the hall we were in today, there must have been hundreds of them all cobbled together.

HBTM

I don't normally do this but let's celebrate my birthday. Another year older and another candle on the cake!

DW

Christmas 2021

Well, it is just 9th November 2021 and Starbucks in Surin has Christmas music playing, Christmas drinks and food are on the menu, too. That's early!

Quarantine

We spent a couple of weeks in Hua Hin, returning last Sunday and we have been in quarantine ever since. We already had a wall around 3 sides of the house then built a fence to close it all off last month. Easy to stay within and easy to keep dogs, chickens and people out.

OK, the chicken can jump the fence. The dogs learned to squeeze through the old gate we built years ago. The chickens will always come and go but I put up some mesh to keep the dogs out ... well, I think I have kept them out now!

DW

18/10/2021 

covid-19 Arrived

Jungle Drums Were Silent

It was a heart stopping moment, to be told that someone exposed to covid-19 was living about 100 metres away from our house in a tiny village of just 45 houses. Normally, the jungle drums around here are very active and they can transmit messages within seconds of hearing or generating news.

This time, it took the drums over a week to share this news. In the meantime, goodness knows how many interactions there have been between the contacts and the rest of us, bearing in mind that the contacts own and live in a building with a shop attached. Hundreds, if not thousands of interactions in that week have possibly taken place.

That was a week ago, so about two weeks since the exposures happened and, touching wood, no one here is reporting any sickness.

Foreigners Out

The other aspect of this is the moratorium on foreigners like myself being eligible for any vaccination against covid-19: even if I were prepared to pay for it.

Other countries have given vaccinations to everyone and anyone if they were considered to be vulnerable because of age and health concerns. Not here: no foreigner should be vaccinated while there are unvaccinated locals. That is a policy that deserves to backfire. The point is that anyone who succumbs to covid-19 can pass it on to anyone because in the early stages of infection, no one knows they've got it. So, we all go our own way, masked or not, hands washed or not and blindly spread the virus.

Ah! but, you are a foreigner so keep out of our hospitals until we are all done.

Ah! I say, but most of you are not vaccinated either and I am in the vulnerable category so you'd better watch out. Whether I like it or not, whether you like it or not, we are sharing the same air space and surfaces. The virus couldn't care less who you are and who I am.

The moratorium is being ended now. The penny has finally dropped.When I will be vaccinated, though, no one knows yet!

Thailand covid-19 Confirmed Cases

I don't say that all of Thailand's covid-19 problems are because of their moratorium of vaccinations for foreigners by any stretch of the imagination and the graph below shows Thailand's confirmed cases record from March 2020 to August 2021. I am hoping that the signs of a downward trend will continue, for the benefit of everyone.

Singapore

Remember gold standard Singapore? The shining light of covid-19 best practice. Until they weren't. Singapore had an impressive regimen for dealing covid-19 cases in the early stages of the pandemic. Truly impressive. Then the infections started to rise. Then they realised they had a problem.

Then they realised where the problem lay: xenophobia. Like many countries, Singapore relies on what is called migrant labour in these parts. Typically, in this region, such labourers are housed in ramshackle dormitories where 8, 10, 15 people share one room or dorm. They are migrants. Foreigners. Let them take care of themselves.

It bit Singapore but credit to them, once they realised how stupid they had been, they took care of the problem. You can see the bite marks on the graph below that shows the confirmed cases in Singapore over the period March 2020 to August 2021.

DW

28th August 2021

Colour Blindness

Colour Blindness: ever thought about it as you create your webinars, handouts and other support materials? Me neither.

I came across a really good article on colour blindness this morning and that inspired me to create the file that is attached to this message.

Make yourself colour blind aware or as many as 10% of your male audience might not see what you are saying!

Click on this link to see a PDF version of a PowerPoint Presentation I just created on the subject

DW

6/7/2021

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

Philip Battenburg as he was, did extremely well for himself. Born into a royal family, he spent the first decade and more trolling around Europe at the behest of one penniless family after another.

Still, he had a title and as far as I know, he did no harm.

In the end, he was married to our Queen for 73 years and died just over a week ago. I am not so churlish as to rubbish the man and his life since it was a life of service and he worked hard at what he did. The Queen is bound to be devastated and it may well have an effect on her own longevity since couples who have been together so long often go together. One dying in the morning and the other in the afternoon is not so uncommon.

They are now using the term Grandfather of the Nation and I reject that: he was never that. It's like the soubriquet National Treasure. He wasn't that either. A national treasure emerges over many years and, possibly, for many reasons. To my mind, no one ever appoints a national treasure: they appear by osmosis.

I never ask that anyone rests in peace since that suggests something that I do not believe. I do like to use this phrase, however

Ave atque vale, Philip: hail and farewell!

DW

17th April 2021

Blog Menu

Welcome to this blog. I have been using and ignoring and using this blog for a long time but now it is serving two purposes. It is my personal and my business blog at the same time.

The way I am managing this is that my personal posts are shown here as a Post whereas my business posts are all written o individual a Page.

This means that if you search for this blog, you come here and not to my business blog. However, the menu on the left of this page is my business blog menu ... the top level of the menu, at least. There are MANY more pages on this blog that are not included in any menu yet.

Please feel free to ask me about my other pages, there are hundreds of them, in case there is something in there that you want. Eventually, I will sort out this menu system and all will be well.

Duncan Williamson

30th January 2021

You Idiot ...

Since 1995, when I first connected to the internet, I have had web sites, blogs, I post prolifically to quora.com, I give away hundreds of files a year ... someone asks me a question and I do my best to answer it. Unless I think a student has posted his homework question, hoping to get the work done for him, I answer questions honestly and in full. That can take me five minutes or even five hours, sometimes more. That's what I do. Yesterday I posted a question on a discussion list about the ACF and PACF functions in R ... simple for anyone who knows R well but difficult for me I had spent a long time looking at the ACF and PCF help files, I had searched the web for answers, I had watched videos on YouTube. It could be that, in my ignorance, I didn't frame my question so well because the first two answers didn't answer my question. Of course, that can happen but one respondent said to me, before posting questions here, it is best to look at the help files first. I was motivated to solve this problem by myself now and I did! I did it. Blow me, though; but another smart alek posted an "answer" to my question by telling me that there are many tutorials I could search for and read ... and of course he didn't tell me where to find those tutorials or which tutorials I might find and read. I doubt very much I will post another question to that list! DW

Ludicrous Dashboard

I just saw a post on facebook in which someone shared their dashboard. Gushing comments followed: awesome ... fantastic use of screen real estate ... always love your work ...

There is a link to the video showing how the dashboard was created. He was also gushing about how he set it up to change things at the click of a mouse button. You know, linking one cell to another cell. 

Here is my point: on every screen of this dashboard there are 12 or more metrics/values for each of seven departments ... 84 per screen. Given that he has used sparklines, images, sliders, values ... it is ludicrous to expect anyone to get any value from such a dashboard without having to zoom to, say, 50% or so, thus ruining the desired effect of the thing, surely.

Still, everyone else gushingly loved it. More than that, more and more Excel bloggers are adding more and more features to their own dashboards. Why? Because they can. Why is that so bad? Because it leads to clutter and will have performance implications. But more than that: what happens when Jack or Jenny breaks a link or changes something wrongly?

I suggest you go back to or stay with management by eye, from the old days. 15 ideas on an A4 page or equivalent was an excellent rule of thumb.

Duncan Williamson

14th November 2020

Comments on this Blog

I have just found a few comments sent to me here dating all the way back to 2015. I just saw them!! I have approved all of them so if you suddenly find me popping up to say, thanks for a comment you had completely forgotten about ... now you know why! DW 14/11/2020

I am coming back here

People still come here from time to time, even though I haven't been posting here very often over the last few years and my main blog at the moment is my Excel blog over at excelmaster.co. Hoever, it looks like the covid-19 pandemic is forcing me out of that home and I will be using this blog as my main blog again. You can always find me on www.quora.com, too, answering Excel and other questions. I work in fits and starts there but I have uploaded a lot more than 1,000 answers already. So, welcome back here and I look forward to seeing more and more of you here as we move into the new year ... almost! Duncan Williamson 14th November 2020

Show Zero in Excel

https://www.quora.com/q/duncansanswers/How-do-I-show-extra-zeros-in-Excel?ch=99&share=51187c6c&srid=2m1N

Formulas in Excel: corkscrew

https://www.quora.com/q/duncansanswers/In-Excel-what-is-the-formula-that-is-most-popular-to-calculate-wealth-based-on-salary-increases-in-your-job?ch=99&share=b7913f2d&srid=2m1N

Cross Tabulation in Excel

https://www.quora.com/q/duncansanswers/What-is-cross-tabulation-in-Excel?ch=99&share=91fc4476&srid=2m1N

Excel Formatting Every Other Row

https://www.quora.com/q/duncansanswers/How-do-I-make-every-other-line-shaded-in-Excel?ch=99&share=abc11be8&srid=2m1N

TEXT Function in Excel

https://www.quora.com/q/duncansanswers/How-do-you-put-a-formula-in-the-middle-of-a-sentence-in-Excel?ch=99&share=1864d947&srid=2m1N

LARGE or Rank Functions

https://www.quora.com/q/duncansanswers/How-do-I-use-the-LARGE-or-rank-functions-with-a-group-of-numbers-that-includes-a-few-N-A-cells?ch=99&share=44d73c75&srid=2m1N

Random Search

https://www.quora.com/q/duncansanswers/Is-it-possible-to-do-a-random-search-for-100-names-and-have-a-result-that-lists-the-organizations-ID-number-and-name-I?ch=99&share=377cfd6a&srid=2m1N

Format Data: XY Scatter Graph

https://www.quora.com/q/duncansanswers/How-do-I-properly-format-my-data-in-an-Excel-x-y-scatter-chart-Please-see-comments-for-more-details?ch=99&share=84b0060c&srid=2m1N

Change from Period to Period

https://www.quora.com/q/duncansanswers/How-do-I-show-how-much-increase-decrease-from-previous-data-on-a-12-week-rolling-spreadsheet-preferably-automated?ch=99&share=b36807e8&srid=2m1N

Count Dates

https://www.quora.com/q/duncansanswers/How-can-I-count-the-number-of-dates-that-fall-between-two-dates-that-do-not-contain-a-specific-status-For-example-coun?ch=99&share=ab90fd63&srid=2m1N

Vertical and Horizontal Line

https://www.quora.com/q/duncansanswers/How-do-I-draw-a-vertical-horizontal-line-bisector-in-a-cell-and-add-text-to-both-of-them-in-Excel?ch=99&share=e1f7de5f&srid=2m1N

https://www.quora.com/q/duncansanswers/Which-20-Excel-formulas-give-80-of-the-results-for-data-science-and-BI-analysis?ch=99&share=e8978c99&srid=2m1N

https://www.quora.com/q/duncansanswers/How-can-I-extract-specific-text-in-a-text-string-from-a-database-of-specific-text-in-Excel-So-if-I-have-10-specific?ch=99&share=5b864065&srid=2m1N

https://www.quora.com/q/duncansanswers/How-do-you-output-Excel-sorting-results-into-separate-columns-by-content?ch=99&share=770e8941&srid=2m1N

https://www.quora.com/q/duncansanswers/Is-it-possible-to-apathetically-order-a-row-in-Excel-like-you-would-order-a-column?ch=99&share=f10f1db8&srid=2m1N

https://www.quora.com/q/duncansanswers/How-can-I-swap-two-columns-in-Excel-not-shifting?ch=99&share=4ba4fa58&srid=2m1N

20% of the Formulas give 80% of the Results

Answer to Which 20% Excel formulas give 80% of the results for data science and BI analysis? by Duncan Williamson https://www.quora.com/Which-20-Excel-formulas-give-80-of-the-results-for-data-science-and-BI-analysis/answer/Duncan-Williamson-1?ch=99&share=bd0b812a&srid=2m1N

Quora Questions

I write answers on various Excel topics at www.quora.com and this page provides links to some of my answers. They are not normally massively complex questions but I answer the ones that I think might be interesting to my visitors and readers. The pages are probably in reverse order: lastest pages first; but that should not matter!

Update 5th December 2019

How do I convert F to C in Excel?

Can I sort a column of strings in an Excel doc alphabetically by last rather than the first character?

How can you take a profit and loss statement in CSV format and easily load it into PowerBi?

Every CSV I've ever tried to save from Excel (2010) says “filename.csv may contain features that are not compatible with CSV (comma delimited). Do you want to keep the workbook in this format?” Why is this? How can I save it as CSV?

Why does Microsoft Office make it so difficult to guarantee your work is saved?

How do I extract consecutive capitalized words from a body of text in Microsoft Excel?

In Excel Wizards, is there a function that enables me to choose specific texts in a cell based on other keywords (i.e., 'age: "29"')?

Why doesn't Excel recognise comma separated values as separate and filterable?

What is an effective way to categorize and sort large lists of quotes or definitions for someone with limited Excel knowledge?

How do you graph 10,000 data in an Excel chart?

What is paste special in Excel?

What is the x-intercept and y-intercept of two lines x-3y=7 and 2x-5y=4?

What is NPV and its formula?

How can I make a Google Sheets function (in column K, row 5) that compares two rows (4 & 5) in the same column (column J) and then automatically skips 2 rows instead of one when dragged into row 6, so that now it's comparing rows 6 & 7 in column J?

https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-make-a-line-graph-in-PowerPoint/answer/Duncan-Williamson-1

How can one have two things on the same axis in Excel?

This page is on my facebook page and not Quora! The page shows a Power BI image of the flight path of LY1747 of El Al ... it is unusual, to say the least. https://www.facebook.com/william.williamson.144/videos/1600460606762146/

What are some real life examples and applications of multiple regression?

How do you show a subtotal at the bottom of a pivot table without showing the title at the top in Excel?

Which duplicate does Excel remove?

How do you use an exponential equation you get from Excel? I know how to make Excel show me the equation, but how do I "copy" it or use it?

How do I paste a chart from one Excel to a blank Excel?

What are the most unused excel formulas?

What are some typical statistics and plotting made on datasets with 2 columns of numerical values and one column of categorical values?

In MS Excel, I have a large column of times (in seconds and minutes) when events occurred. Is there a way to automatically segment this data to make a frequency distribution table of say 0-5 minutes had 3 events, 5-10 minutes had 0 events, etc.?

Journalizing records data chronologically in accounting. What is the explanation of it?

What is exponential smoothing in Excel?

Fondest Memories of Sister Fiona

My sister Fiona died over the summer and, as I usually do, I write a few words to help our family members on their way. Here are those words.

In Loving Memory of Fiona Christine

As we have all seen before when I have written tributes to our departed, I have usually been stuck in a time warp that ended in 1988. This is more or less the same but rather than relate a long litany of things, I decided to record just half a dozen things that Fiona did or said that are best known as Fionaisms.

 Susan Greenwood featured large in Fiona’s life in their formative years and here’s a classic from that time: With just Fiona and I in the room, Susan came and knocked on our back door.
For some childish reason, I shouted “We’re not in”
In a panic and as she dashed to answer the door, Fiona shouted back, “We are”!

 I left home in 1974 for good or ill and, of course, returned home at the end of every term and sometimes more often. My dates were known so I was always expected. Apart from the time that a friend from Accrington was getting a lift home from his dad and they kindly offered to drive me home, too.

Providing I could go with them the day before the end of term. As if I wouldn’t agree to that.

 I must have arrived around 6 pm or thereabouts and I opened the door with a ta daa, surprise … and Fiona, who’d have been about 15 at that time and who just happened to be in the middle of the room, saw me and announced “There’s no tea for you”!

 Speaking of being given a lift, our Susan very kindly offered to give me a lift back to Sunderland from Tod one day and Fiona came with us. At about the half way mark we decided it was time for a cuppa. So, we pulled into a nice looking place in Harrogate, I think it was. We ordered one by one, whatever we ordered. This is Fiona’s order:

 Waiter: What would you care for, madam? Fiona: Tea, please.
Waiter: Black or white, madam?
Fiona: Wadam ... er, white, please.

  I was told the following story and think it’s true but it could have happened to anyone. I don’t remember the exact conversation, so I have invented that part. Fiona and Danny going around Madame Tussaud’s Waxworks. La la la. Ooh, look, that’s Tom Cruise. I didn’t know Arnold Schwarzenegger was so short …

Then they either got lost or wanted some information and saw someone sitting at a desk near by so Fiona sauntered over and asked them for directions.

Turns out the person behind the desk was another exhibit so there was little surprise when it didn’t answer.

 Don’t forget, now that Carol and Fiona have left us, there is only one arch cheese and onion pie maker left in the family. That’s a big burden, Susan!

 This final story follows on from Fiona’s baking skills. When I was living in Kazakhstan, I asked Fiona if I could make a video of her making a cheese and onion pie. She agreed and we did it and it was a good video: sadly lost to technology.

Anyway, when I got back to Almaty, I thought it would be a cracking idea to get some of our English teachers to use the video for our students to learn about English pies and to listen to a native speaker speaking.

Remembering that foreigners are usually taught to speak Cambridge or Oxford English, listening to Fiona’s West Riding accent caused a few in the audience to ask, “What on earth is she saying? Where is she from”!

 That’s no reflection on Fiona at all but I thought it was an enlightening experience. 

Anyway, light hearted moments at the saddest time in someone’s life. They leave so much behind and since everyone else has been with her and around her since 1988, there must be thousands and thousands more stories to tell. Or just to remember as you walk down the street, gawp at the telly or when sitting in a vacant mood one day.

 Sorry you had to go so soon and it is absolutely, copper bottomed guaranteed that you are going to be missed.

 Duncan 20th August 2019

Flash Fill in Power Query and Quick Analysis in Excel

Flash Fill and Quick Analysis Video 1

BREXIT Follow up

You might well have read my small rant on Brexit from earlier this year. In the final sentence of that post, I concluded by saying, it can only go wrong.

Brexit Post 1

Last week, our ridiculous Prime Minister set her resignation date and then we have just had the most monstrous EU MEP election charade. She made Brexit go from bad to far worse.

The Man from Mars test would conclude that the UK is going to hell in a handcart and we're all doomed. Well, many a true word as the follow up to the resignation of the Prime Minister story is that she needs to be replaced. It must come as no surprise that the leading candidate for that job, who will be elected by a tiny number of people from within their political party, is a serial arsehole of the greatest magnitude. The Man from Mars will be asking himself how the laws of nature can be used to stop yet another anomaly.

Surely we do not deserve this punishment?

DW

Is there life on Maaaaaars?

Get your name in lights and sign up for a boarding pass on the 2020 NASA mission to Mars

DW

BREXIT

I get involved in discussions online about all sorts of things via newspaper comment threads and the one that has been getting my goat is anything to do with the Great British disease Brexit. This is the monstrous boil on the arse of a country that has done and created so much for the world and now, because of the power of the shyster, the liar and the self seeking, it is being dragged down by grossly incompetent politicians as they seek to leave their mark on history whilst claiming they are fulfilling the wish of the people.

What these wretched people have done is set out massively disjointed, unprovable, unscientific arguments that favour their own personal agendas but what they have not done, not one of them, is to provide leadership. Their crime is that they have set out one side of an argument and left it at that. You will say, that is democracy and I say yes it is. What has then happened, however, it that the monstrous carbuncle of a Prime Minister has done nothing whatsoever to provide the missing leadership: she has not in any way attempted to balance the arguments and provide a reasoned conclusion on the proper way forward.

No, Theresa May, started out two years ago by saying Brexit means Brexit and since then has done deal after stupid deal to keep her minority government in office such that Brexit means goodness knows what.

It can only go wrong.

DW

New Year 2019

Happy new year to everyone who stumbles across this infrequent blog: I used to write as often as every day or so but there are so many things to do these days.

Here is a link you need if you want to try a fantastic egg (or mushroom or tofu) curry that takes a bit of time but is not difficult: Chef de Home Delicious Egg Curry

Away we go into 2019!

DW

FUNCTIONS ... top 100

I just came across a couple of pages on hbr.org that you need to know about and forgive me if these are behind a paywall: I subscribe to the HBR so I went straight to every page.

Firstly, 10 Excel Functions Everyone Should Know by Adam Lacey and Deborah Ashby. I prefer DGET to their INDEX-MATCH function but otherwise, this is a good start to learning the top 10. Top 10 Excel Functions

Then there is a REALLY useful PDF file The Definitive 100 Most Useful Excel Tips at https://excelwithbusiness.com/blog/definitive-100-most-useful-excel-tips/

Finally and following on from the 100 must useful Excel tips, Marc Zao-Zanders gives us this, A 2x2 Matrix to Help You to Prioritise the Skills to Learn Right Now, here: https://hbr.org/2017/09/a-2x2-matrix-to-help-you-prioritize-the-skills-to-learn-right-now This 2x2 matrix puts the 100 tips on a grid/graph to illustrate four quadrants:

• Decide whether you need to learn it


• Learn it as the chance arises


• Schedule a block of time for learning it


• Learn it right away

Marc says this, "You’ll find the quickest wins in the bottom-right quadrant, which we’ve labeled “Learn it right away.” In here we have time-saving shortcuts that can be applied frequently, like Ctrl-Y (redo) and F2 (edit cell) and a nice combination formula that cleanses your spreadsheet of errors (IF(ISERROR))." Of course, IF(ISERROR) is way out of date and should be replced by IFERROR()

Duncan Williamson

22nd December 2018

BS on a 'plane

What is it about being on or near an aeroplane that makes people come out with the biggest BS on the planet? Last night, we landed and as we waited for the door to open, I heard this exchange.

Man 1: Better than a 7 hour drive, eh?
Man 2: Yes!
Man 1: Where are you going now?
Man 2: I am changing airports
Man 1: Me too. Want to share a cab?
Man 2: indistinct!
Man 1: Where are you going, Shanghai?
Man 2: Dhaka
Man 1: Dhaka? What are you doing there?
Man 2: Working ... got a short term contract there.
Man 1: I worked in Dhaka and Shanghai and somewhere else

Then man 1 built on his BS this way

Man 1: Was it easy to get a visa?
Man 2: Indistinct
Man 1: They gave me the run around for a month
Man 2: No! I didn't have any problems like that. It all went well.
Man 1: The problem is, all of our people don't know squat.

Thankfully the door opened and I didn't have to eavesdrop any more.

By the way, if you want to go from one Bangkok airport to another and you have your flight details with you, you can take a free shuttle bus from door to door. Your flight cane even be 24 hours in advance and you can still take the shuttle!

DW

Singapore Airlines Superb Result

Introduction

If you have stumbled across this page hoping to find a cheap Business Class seat on Singapore Airlines (SIA), sorry! What you have arrived at is a page that explains how I found a superb result to my analysis of the last 19 years of SIA's financial results.

The Data

As I was using Power Query to help me to analyse SIA's financial results, I downloaded their last 19 years' worth of Annual Reports and Accounts and from there I downloaded everything you see here:



The question is, what can I do with all of that? What I often do as part of my financial analysis is to create a Net Income model. That is, I make Net Income the dependent variable and have one or more independent variables.

The First Model

My first model comprises Y = Net Income  = All Other Variables in the above table, all six of them. I used the Data Analysis ToolPak for this and here is my output:



A Correlation Matrix of all variables and I have conditionally formatted the results to highlight the extreme values and the mid range values. For example, Revenue and Fuel Costs are very highly correlated as are Passengers and Rev Pax Km (Revenue Passenger Kilometers). Rather oddly, there is virtually no correlation between Staff Costs and the Number of Employees.

The Regression output are as follows:



Let's note that the Adjusted R Squared value is high at 0.6755, the F statistic is significant at 7.25 but of the six independent variables only Staff Costs are significant, with a t statistic of 3.3287 and a P Value of 0.0060.

I think this is a superb result: Staff Costs being the only significant variable as its coefficient shows that a unit change to Staff Costs leads to a 2.5913 million SGD increase in Net Income.

The residuals plots show that everything is probably fine although we are only dealing with 19 data points or years of data:

Conclusion

On the one hand, this model fails because only one variable is significant and using just Staff Costs to predict Net Income is not rational. This says that we need to refine or replace the model to find something better. That being true, why do I think I found something superb?

SIA is famous for its recruitment of and investment in high quality cabin crew and other members of staff. Whilst they don't pay the highest salaries, they do reward well overall, training is high level and frequent, they use more cabin crew per flight than most, if not all, of its competitors to maximise customer satisfaction.

Out of all of that, the data contain the relationships that I just mentioned and regression analysis has brought them out! That is superb in my opinion!

I want you to replicate my work here so, whilst there is a spreadsheet to download, it only contains the data I have extracted and used. Feel free to ask for advice and guidance here but I am not providing the full spreadsheet file.

Download the file of data from here sia_data_blog

 

Duncan Williamson

14th August 2018

 

They Delayed my Flight ... Circus Time!

It is really not convenient when your travel plans are disrupted. Today, my flight has been delayed by about 8 hours. We got on the plane then we were thrown off.

Well, these things happen. It's what happens next that I find fascinating. Some people are just born bullshitters and being cooped up with a new, captive, audience is meat and drink to them. They can tell their old, tired, boring stories to other victims.

Then there are the people who want to know what if ... what if we don't leave today ... what if I want to transfer to another airline... what if ...

Then there is the food and drink voucher for an amount of money they can buy just about nothing. It's a big, price inflated airport for goodness sake!

Don't forget the passengers who know how to run an airline better than any airline and the passenger who knows all about ticketing and refunds ... la la la.

However, it is still true that this airline, along with most others, is rubbish at keeping their passengers informed. Rubbish.

DW

Shoe Shine

Last night I had my shoes shined by a shoe shine boy in the street. He did a fantastic job and my shoes are the shiniest they have ever been.

DW

Give me the Money!

As I travel into and out of Thailand, I often have to stay overnight in Bangkok. These days, I choose affordable places to stay since I travel alone and might spend as few as 8 hours there: who needs to pay a lot of money, including paying for a breakfast I cannot eat?

My latest arrival took me to a more expensive hotel and even though I knew they would want 1000 Baht deposit, I knew I didn't have it! I had just flown in from KL and had 300 Baht. I also had Ringgit and Dirhams and offered them instead. Not good enough, apparently!

I told the receptionist that I don't have a credit card and that is true. So when she said I should go to the ATM to get the Money, I said I don't have a card. How did I pay for the room, then, she asked? Online, I replied ... yes, I've got a debit card account but not the card! Again, that is the truth.

I took out my foreign currency notes and asked: what would you like? Notes from many countries. She asked, why do you have so many foreign notes and I replied, because I don't have a credit card!

She settled on 50 Singapore Dollars and I could now, after midnight, get to bed.

I have this kind of discussion in hotels everywhere: hotels do not trust us, they don't care that you have stayed there incident free for years, they treat us as if we are liars.

What I find irritating is that I often arrive so late. I will check out within 12 to 15 hours. I will get the deposit back.

It's stress I do not need and do not appreciate.

Incidentally, I rely on WiFi for my business and personal life when I am travelling so you can understand further frustration when the WiFi did not work in my room until 10 am ... 10 hours after I checked in.

At a completely unrelated hotel, they overcharged me by about £200. They put the credit on my bill. I said, when do I get that back. Glibly, I was told, two to three weeks. Can you believe that? I stood my ground and although three separate people argued with me and assured me they would PERSONALLY see to it that I would get my money back quickly, I said, you won't. I got my money but was made to feel like a thief. I didn't care!

DW

Playing Games? Not on my time!

I am at an airport and I am hungry so I went in search of food. There are only two cafes here and as one was very busy, I went to the other one.

I studied the menu, made my decision and joined the queue comprising one other person.

My joint queue friend was waiting patiently as ... you will not believe this ... the cashier played a game on his phone. As he ripped himself away from his phone to do whatever was no priority at all, I left.

'RE

Different Milks

Non Dairy Milks

As I turned vegan to a large extent recently, I have been trying different, non dairy, milks.

I tried Almond Milk but I found that as I left this milk in the fridge for a couple of days, once I had opened the packet, it got thicker and thicker. Made my breakfast cereal unpalatable.

I then switched to Soy milk but the main brands here are very sweet, even the low sugar versions. Then I found an Australian brand that is only slightly sweet and switched to that!

Every now and again I come across reports that Soy is bad for us, so I went back to Almond milk from the Australian company I just referred to: very good, no thickening, not too sweet. Almost twice the price of Soy milk, however.

Over the weekend I tried some Walnut milk and I like that.

I will probably alternate between Almond and Walnut milk although I have yet to try Pistachio milk!

Carageenan

By accident, I learned about Carrageenan, a thickening agent that can be found everywhere. It sounds dangerous although I found a reference to a study that said food additive Carrageenan is not harmful. Better safe than sorry, I wrote to the Australian company and they assured me that they have replaced Carrageenan in their products. The producer of the Walnut and Pistachio nut milks say on their packets, Carragenan Free.


DW

Please Rehearse

I have watched another few online videos/webinars and in addition to the most horrendously long introductions, the other major crime comes when the presenter surprises him/herself with an error or unexpected result.

Please rehearse before you create and please edit before you publish.

If you really are trying to train a novice, they WILL get confused as your cursor flies all over the place and your words do not match your actions.

DW

Introductions are Rubbish

The other day I attended a webinar and even though it was only scheduled to be an hour long, they spent 12+ minutes introducing themselves.

Last night I went to another webinar, completely different people; and they spend 24 out of 85 minutes introducing themselves ...

If you do presentations and webinars, learn from this. I attend these things to learn about the technicalities and not so much about the presenter ... put that stuff on a blog if you have to!

DW

Power Query: Gt & Transform in Excel Following the January 2018 Update

I am hosting four videos here for my Excel blog. Please watch them if you are using Power Query aka Get & Transform in Office365 ... Excel 2016.

Four videos that discuss the four main changes to G&T that were just announced.

Your feedback will be highly valued and I look forward to sharing it.

Hop over to my Excel Blog to download the Excel file

Video 1 Bucket/Bin Ranges

Video 2 Positive/Negative Association

Video 3 Positive/Negative Association Explained in Full

Video 4 Creating Associated Lists

DW
31st January 2018

Nobel Again

You have seen my long post on this subject, now read the shorter version in the Todmorden News ... Tod News

DW
25th January 2018

You are only fooling yourself

The other day I was travelling and saw something that I found disheartening.

A very large man was travelling with someone else and they were sitting together and chatting. Then this morbidly obese man left his friend and came and sat next to me. He carried a bag with him that he opened and started to take food out of: greasy burgers and chips with lots of coleslaw. He ate this food as if he had hardly eaten for weeks. After he had gorged himself he closed his bag and clearly wanted to clean his hands before he returned to his friend. So he wandered to the toilet to get clean and then went back to sit next to his friend.

I think I felt sorry for this man: clearly he has an eating disorder of some sort that includes hiding his consumption from his friend. I hope he can find some peace that will allow him to stop this long, slow suicide that he's in the middle of.

DW
22 Jan 2018

Analysis of Nobel Prizes

The place of Todmorden in the Annals of the Nobel Prize! as at the end of December 2017

Introduction

My home town is Todmorden in West Yorkshire, England and throughout all of my childhood we were proud to say that Todmordian John Douglas Cockcroft had won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1951: it was a joint award and he won it with Ernest Walton of Dungarvan, Ireland. We are told they were the first to have split the atom!

In 1973 another Todmordian, Geoffrey Wilkinson won the Chemistry prize along with Ernst Otto Fischer for their work on sandwich compounds: they were working independently of one another, it seems.

This put us in the stratosphere: which other town or city on the planet could boast TWO Nobel Prize Winners? Moreover, in spite of the 24 year age gap between them, Cockcroft and Wilkinson shared the same science teacher at Todmorden Grammar School.

This article sets out to answer a series of questions I have never seen answered before which includes, is Todmorden unique in respect of it Nobel Prize achievements? Is Todmorden at the top of any Nobel list? Has any other town or city produced more than two Nobel Prizes. Has any town of the size of Todmorden or less produced two, or more, Nobel Prize winners? … all low level stuff but I could not find anywhere THE source that would tell me everything I wanted to know.

Yes, the Official Web Site of the Nobel Prize, https://www.nobelprize.org, contains a massive amount of detail but it didn’t tell me, for example, if Todmorden is the smallest town to produce two Laureates and so on.

My File

I have produced an Excel file that contains all of the basic details of every Nobel Prize there has been: from 1901 to 2017. My list includes every Laureate, date of the award, dates of birth, dates of death, male or female and more.

Since I was trying to make Todmorden the centre of attention, I had said in a Todmorden based Facebook forum last week that I felt it is probably unique in producing two Laureates relative to its population size! I had long since given up the notion that Todmorden was top of the pile in all respects, of course; because we must expect the University cities of Oxford, Cambridge (UK and USA), Paris, Bonn … to outshine little old Todmorden!

By the way, Todmorden is not a University town so Cockcroft and Wilkinson belong to us by rght of birth: they are Tod Lads!

I went to various sources to find the populations of the cities for which there are two Nobel Laureates. I did not look for the populations of cities that had 1 or 3 or 4 or more Laureates since Todmorden is not competing with them by my reckoning!

You can download my file from the link at the end of this article (ths link will appear in the final version of this article) and for Excel warriors, you will find that I have used a wide range of techniques in there that includes various functions and formulas as well as Get & Transform/Power Query, including some programming in M.

How Many Prizes?

 Todmorden has claimed two prizes: how many other towns and cities have claimed the same or more or less? Examples














New York is top of the pile by a long way, London is third and as you can see, Todmorden is there with two Laureates. Overall, the number of cities by number of prizes is as follows:













Todmorden, then, is one of 44 cities around the world to have claimed two Nobel Prizes: one of just 91 cities to have claimed more than one Nobel Prize.

Ages of Laureates

John Cockcroft was 54 years old when he won his prize and Geoffrey Wilkinson was 52 years old. For a Physics Laureate, Cockcroft was almost two years younger than the average and for a Chemistry Laureate, Wilkinson was over six yearsyounger than the average.



By the way, the first Nobel Prizes were awarded in 1901, a relatively modern institution; but take a look at the dates of birth of the first Laureates, from 1901 and 1902:



The second ever Nobel Literature Laurate, Theodor Mommsen, was born on 30th November 1817: there was no other Laureate born before Theodor Mommsen!

By the same token, the first 20th century born Laureate did not appear until Frederic Joliot-Curie was awarded the Chemistry Prize in 1935. Frederic was born on 19th March 1900 and was part of the famous Curie family! For interest, here is the Curie family Nobel history:

 

To date, the youngest ever Laureate is Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan who was a mere 17 years old when she won the 2014 Peace Prize: Malala was born 180 years after Theodor Mommsen! Until then, the youngest ever Laureate had been the 25 year old Australian William Lawrence Bragg who won the Physics Prize in 1915. The oldest prize winner to date is Russian born Leonid Hurwicz, who was 90 years old when he was awarded the 2007 Economics Prize.

Sex of Prize Winners

Up until the end of 2017, women have won just 49 Nobel Prizes, men have scooped the other 847: almost 30 prizes have been awarded to Organisations, so they are gender neutral!

Marie Curie’s award in 1903 was the first by a woman and in the first 20 years in which the Prizes were awarded, only four went to women. In the 20 years to the end of 2017, women have been awarded 21 Prizes.

I will attempt no answer to suggest why more women have not earned Nobel Prizes and I have to say that over the last 20 or so years, women have been actively lobbying for more women Laureates. Since they clearly cannot create scientific achievement out of thin air, the majority of prizes for women have been the Peace and Literature Prizes with a further 12, Physiology or Medicine, Prizes having been awarded to women!



Please note, the relatively small number of Prizes for Economics reflects the fact that the first Economics Prizes were not awarded until 1969. Moreover, the title of this Prize is, in full: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.

Populations and the Final Answer

For me, this is the big question: person for person, is a Todmorden Nobel Prize worth more than anywhere else on the planet? In other words, is Todmorden the smallest town in the world to have been awarded two Nobel Prizes?

Please note, I have not gone back to the dates of the award of the Prizes to find the populations of the cities concerned: in some cases that would be impossible anyway. What I have done is to take the latest figure I can find on the internet as at 8th January 2018 for all of the cities of interest.

Well, a two Prize city has a mean population of over 960,000 and a median of almost 388,000 inhabitants. Yay! Tiny Todmorden has around 15,500 inhabitants. The largest two Prize city is Mexico City with 8.9 million people, Halifax, 12 miles from Todmorden also has two Prize winners and has a population of 88,000 or thereabouts.

So, the smallest two Prize city is … Rendcombe in Gloucestershire with a population of just 354 people. More than that, their two Prizes came from one man, Frederick Sanger who won the Chemistry Prize outright in 1958 and outright again in 1980. Hats off to Frederick!

Conclusions

There you are: good news, bad news! Todmorden is in the elite Nobel Prize World by having two Nobel Prize winners in its history. It is the smallest town to have two Prize winners. Alas, it is not the smallest village! Let’s give due credit to Frederick Sanger and Rendcombe (or Rendcomb) for not only winning two Prizes but winning them both outright: a very rare achievement.

Sanger helped to answer another of the questions that was raised on the Facebook page I mentioned earlier and that is: is Todmorden Grammar the only school to have produced two Nobel Prizes? Again, no! However, let’s find a winning angle for Todmorden: Sanger won two prizes but he is only one Laureate, albeit Laureate and bar! So, for having two Laureates from the same school, Tod is Tops!

E&OE

Finally, this article took me several days both to research and for me to carry out the analysis in my Excel file: I humbly apologise if there are any errors here and if you do find something amiss, please let me know and I will correct it! I have made very few changes to the basic data but I have had to make a very small number of minor tweaks to place names/locations to prevent misrepresentation.

Acknowledgements I am grateful to the Nobel Prize organisation for making their database freely available and for the various sites that provided me with population and other data: in that regard, mainly www.wikipedia.com

Duncan Williamson
9th January 2018

Excel file for download: the link will appear here in the final version of this article

Gardening

I have loved having a garden for as long as I can remember and I first owned my own garden in 1983. It was tiny and I went from complete tripe to overwhelmed by one kind of flower to mediocre. My garden in Malawi was fantastic: real credit to our garden boy and, of course, my estate management skills. Ahem! I am taking back control of my garden here, now. We inherited some trees and bushes and they are still here. I laid a lawn front and sides of the house and whilst they don't sell what I call grass here, it looks like a lawn and I mow it from time to time to keep it neat. I love kitchen gardens and have now taken control of that aspect too. Mrs W is prone to planting a hundred seeds of one plant that then grows and overwhelms us with a harvest we cannot appreciate: she gets things to grow, at least. I am taking a more measured approach now and have planted a lot fewer seeds and bulbs but will plant again in a few weeks' time to get a proper flow of plants going. Let's see how it all works out. I will report back from time to time. DW

Love Actually ... well, no, actually

I bought the DVD of Love Actually at least twice and I watch it just about every year. So, it's time to watch it again. Except, of course, Windows 10 in all its fantastic glory will not allow me to play it. Who knows what the problem is? Genuine DVD. Played several times already. Not scratched or damaged in any way. Very frustrating DW

Trip to Khao Kho

We live in a rice farming area which is, not surprisingly, very flat. No hills, hardly a slope in sight. So far a weekend away I insisted that we went somewhere hilly. Goodness, did we find some hills. And so VERY steep roads! We can to Khao Kho in central Thailand. It's a very nice area with lots of twisty roads and some scary hill climbs. My legs were rewarded with the resistance I was looking for and there are some interesting things to do here and interesting things to see. By the way, even on the top of a couple of hills, on sloping ground, we saw rice being grown! DW

The Pushchair NOT the Baby

Waiting to check in for my flight from Istanbul to Doha when a man carrying a very young baby walked in front of me on his way to another counter. A short conversation that I could not hear took place, after which the check in clerk laughed heartily as she said for all the world to hear, No, not to check in the baby, check in the baby stroller!! The man went past me again as he took his baby away. He came back within a few minutes minus baby, plus pushchair! Some entertainment at least.

Scooby Doo

It's hardly the most important thing I ever thought about but I could not abide that television programme, Scooby Doo. It really got on my nerves. In my inbox today I received my usual OED word of the day message to find the word Scooby ... here is the entry: scooby, n. [‘not to have a scooby: = not to have a clue at clue n. 2e.’] Pronunciation: Brit. /ˈskuːbi/, U.S. /ˈskubi/, Scottish /ˈskubɪ/ Forms: 19– scoobie, 19– scooby. Origin: Formed within English, by clipping or shortening. Etymon: proper name Scooby. Etymology:Short for Scooby Doo, the name of a cartoon dog which features in several U.S. television series and films (which typically include the name of the dog in the title), as rhyming slang for clue n. The fuller form scooby doo is also sometimes found. colloq. (chiefly Sc.). not to have a scooby: = not to have a clue at clue n. 2e. 1993 Herald (Glasgow) 14 May 16 Your lawyer telling youse that he husnae a scooby and youse can jist take a wee tirravie tae yersel. 1999 C. Dolan Ascension Day(2000) vi. 120 Mum, trying to be businesslike, quizzed Morag about blood counts and bone marrow suppression and other such matters about which of course she didn't have a scooby. 2006 Daily Record (Glasgow)(Nexis) 12 May 33 Isn't research meant to ask questions we haven't a scoobie about? May the saints preserve us!! DW

RIP Liam Coughlan

I saw a question on quora.com today that piqued my interest so I answered it: it concerned the British view of Irish people. Since I have worked and admired several Irish people over the years, I responded to say so. Following on from there I thought I would try to find the Irishmen I worked with by way of a google search and was saddened by what I found. I read a story online about my old Irish friend Liam Coughlan. We met and worked together in Yeravan then Tblisi and then as I was posted to Bishkek, Liam was posted to Tashkent: we both still worked for the same organisation in the same project but we were countries apart. We met briefly in Croatia when Liam invited me to run a one weekcourse for him there a while after we had finished our Central Asian gig. We lost touch after that! Liam was one of the smartest men I have ever known: highly qualified in his field; holding high level positions in a variety of organisations. Liam was generous, friendly, open, talkative, informative, supportive, helpful, down to earth, very well read on Ireland and Irish history and politics. Liam was also politically very astute. Liam also had a fantastic sense of humour and any time spent with him was bound to entail his endless blarney and endless anecdotes. He knew or had met countless people: honest johns and downright rogues and he had stories about them all. Liam was educated by the Christian Brothers in Ireland and what they did to him and to others is beyond the pale. Stories of brutality, sexual activity, paedophilia and possibly murder seemed to haunt every waking hour of anyone who was in the throes of anything to do with that outfit. I was transfixed by his stories but never doubted them. Strories in newspapers, books and online match what Liam told me. He regaled me with stories of when he stood for Parliament in Ireland and how he realised how stupid he might have been to try. He was certainly clever and honest enough but maybe a little idealistic. In any case, at or around that time he gave a lift on the back of his motorbike to Charles Haughey, now the late and unlamented Taoiseach whom Liam branded a cheat, liar, thieving arse. At the time I knew Liam I reviewed every book I read on my web site and he not only read my reviews but he commented on them: normally constructive and supportive … apart from the book I reviewed on Haughey. Let me confess that Liam lent me the book and I didn’t read all of it so my review was a little short of proper insight. I got an email from Liam setting me straight and I never admitted my shortcomings but I published Liam’s correction without hesitation! Of the two of us, I was the qualified teacher but Liam was by far the better educator. Because of his intelligence and diligence, he took subjects apart and rebuilt them. He had a learner’s insight and a teacher’s gift and his students were definitely the better for it. He had two women ACCA students in Tblisi and they both sailed through every exam because of Liam and they became qualified accountants in double quick time. If ever a beggar or a hawker came anywhere near Liam or the people he was with, he would be the first or the only one to buy what they were selling or to give them something to eat or just to hand over a few coins or notes. I have known no one else like that. In terms of the question on quora.com, Liam was very clear about that: he liked and respected British people and if anyone tried to say there was hatred between the two nations, he would easily strip out the rumour and gossip and explain who the haters were, where they were, what they wanted and how few of them there were! He could have been an ambassador for Ireland. The story I read about Liam online this morning said that he had died from natural causes in Austria, as testified by the Austrian police: aged 51. I knew his partner had had a baby shortly after we went our separate ways but it seems there was another one after that. The crux of the story I read today concerned the woman who passed herself off as Liam’s first wife who claimed no knowledge of the second wife. Let it be known, I knew about both women and I met the second one several times as she was in Tblisi and elsewhere with him. I never met the first wife but I heard a lot about her and their son. Liam never hid from his responsibilites and I imagine he was a fantastic father but he has died tragiccally very young and I wish his children well. One of the last times we met face to face was in Ireland. At the end of our Central Asian work I said I was looking for somewhere to go on holiday and he suggested Ireland so that’s where I went. From South Wales to Waterford by car ferry and then a week doing a grand tour of Ireland, ending up in Belfast. Liam met me in Waterford and we had a jar or two of Porter there. Grand craic was had during that week and Ireland is a place well worth visiting: Waterford to Cobh, Limerick, Kerry, Knock (Liam had a story about that, too!), Galway and across to Belfast. Excellent drivers in Ireland I have to say: very corteous. I noted the speed signs on the roads as I went from the ferry to the hotel where I met Liam and I asked him, are those signs in miles per hour or kilometers …he replied, you decide! Typical Irish, typical Liam. I am sorry I lost touch but these things happen and I am very sorry to hear that he has died: by the way, no surprise as he smoked like a chimney and eschewed just about every form of exercise known to man! I shoud say, I don’t know what killed him but he did smoke a lot and I know he was treated from time to time for possible skin cancer given the type of skin he had. Nevertheless, ave atque vale Liam. It really was a pleasure and a privilege to have known you. Duncan October 2017

Recipe time: veggie sandwich

Lightly fry the following: Medium sized onion, sliced Clove of garlic crushed and chopped Stick of celery chopped Button mushrooms sliced Fry the onions and garlic for a minute Add the celery for two minutes Add the mushrooms with some ground black pepper, a pinch of salt and 6 or 7 splashes of Worcestershire sauce and keep cooking for another two minutes Meanwhile Toast two slices of your favourite bread and after they have cooled for two minutes spread hummus on both sides of each slice Pile half of your onion mix onto the first slice of bread. Put the second slice I top of that. Now pile the rest of the onion mix on top of the second slice Serve with a salad of your choice if you wish but I couldn't wait! I make my own hummus but shop bought is normally just as good. DW 11th September 2017

American Food

I worked with Mrs W over the last few days to write an introductory piee on American Food: here it is! The USA is the richest country in the world and it has the biggest, most expensive and often the best of everything. There are about 300 million people living in the USA and apart from Native American Indans, they have come from all parts of the world. As these people arrived from Europe, Africa, Asia, South America and elsewhere, they brought their ideas, cultures and cuisines with them. We know about Little Italy and Chinatown in New York, there is the Latin Quarter in New Orleans. All over the country, the food comes from here, there and everywhere. • Jerky • Dutch Baby Pancake • Jersey Breakfast • Shrimp and Grits • Hoppel Poppel • Scrapple • Tex Mex And a lot more A lot of these imported dishes are good quality, nutritious dishes that everyone can eat but there is downside to food from the USA: fast food. Since the 1940s the USA has been the leader in creating food and restaurants that cater to speed and greed. People who either cannot cook or who cannot be bothered to cook. Food portions that can be carried away in buckets, not just on plates. Beefburgers made to be the size of a man’s head. Deep fried food. Food with lots of fat and sugar and carbohydrates. Burgers, fried chicken and pizzas. At least two generations of Americans have been brought up on fast food and the result is that more than half of all Americans are not just overweight, not just fat but they are obese … very fat. No surprise when a single meal at MacDonald’s can contain 1,600 calories and many grammes of fat as well. As countries develop and get richer, the more its people get fatter: it’s time to stop and think. We admire the development in the USA but we do not need its fast food and its obesity. DW 26th August 2017