The First Bin!

I have lived in this house since the end of June 2010 but today, 7th December 2011 is the first time I have put out any refuse bins for collection!

Here's the bin ...

Roast Vegetables

I don't boast very often but on this occasion I will blow my own trumpet. My roast vegetables are brilliant!

I roughly chop and blanch potatoes, carrots and parsnips. I roughly chop onions, usually a white and a red onion ... and then add any other roughly chopped veg I have in and drizzle everything with:

vegetable oil and olive oil
balsamic vinegar

The cook them.

Fantastic!

DW

Halellujah!

Neville: have you seen the Messiah?

Me: every night, just before I go to sleep!

Joke!

What Nev was getting at was that there is a performance of Handel's Messiah to be held tonight and had I ever been to a Messiah concert?

Made us laugh anyway!!

DW

Close House

Just read a review of Close House Hotel in The Times. The name rang a bell. I racked my brains and then went to the hotel's web site.

Close House is a Georgian pile set in fantastic grounds just outside Newcastle upon Tyne. It's £150 a night for B&B but they say that would be £900 for something similar in London: they are probably right.

Now I see, now I know: Close House used to be owned/run by the University of Newcastle and I spent a week or so there in 1984 or 1985 on an MBA residential course. Suave!

Go to their site, click to watch their slightly cheesy video and dream away as you listen to the unctuous voice of Mariella Frostrup!

closehouse.co.uk ... free advert from me!!

DW

Two Problems

I turned on my desktop this morning and boyoing ... no wifi connection.

On my laptop I went to blogger.com to update this blog and boyoing ... big error.

I restored the desktop and the wifi works again now: the problem is an update to my anti virus software.

I can't explain why blogger works again but it works from the App on my phone and from there, a Windows XP and Chrome browser desktop.

Now you know!

DW

Don't Trust the Office of Budget Responsibility ...UPDATE

It’s interesting what happens when one opens Pandora’s Box! As I was putting together my article on the hockey stick effect as I think it applies to the data and forecasts put together but the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) I did a tiny amount of research into what the rest of the world knew about the effect. One thing I came across a web page that said that Mr X created the hockey stick effect in 2004 or 2005 or something.

I stored that information for future reference knowing that I first heard the term hockey stick effect at least in the mid 1980s.

Well, The big hockey stick effect article comes from, according to Wikipedia:

The term hockey stick was coined by the climatologist Jerry Mahlman, to describe the pattern, envisaging a graph that is relatively flat to 1900 as forming the hockey stick's "shaft", followed by a sharp increase corresponding to the "blade". [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3569604.stm]

The reference is to a BBC web site page in which is clearly says:

The hockey stick was a term coined for a chart of temperature variation over the last 1,000 years, which suggested a recent sharp rise in temperature caused by human activities.

Well, no it isn’t: I can tell you where I was and what I was doing when I probably learned the term hockey stick effect but there is no book, article or web site to send you to. I can guarantee, however, that Jerry Mahlman did NOT invent the term: not in the way stated by the BBC anyway. Of course, if Mahlman coined the phrase pre 1985 or 1984 then fine, I can accept that!

In fact, at the time of starting my analysis of the OBR data expecting to find hockey stick effect evidence, I had never knowingly heard of Mahlman and his hockey stick diagram. Incidentally, here is the diagram Mahlman created:

Source: BBC web site supra

From the fascinating article entitled The rise and fall of the Hockey Stick that I came across this morning, even if you don’t go and read the entire article, take a look at this graphic:

Source: http://a-sceptical-mind.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Comparison-charts.jpg

The point of the controversy is, perhaps, best illustrated by the following:

Until the 1990s there were many, many references in scientific and historical literature to a period labelled the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) lasting from about AD 800–1300. It was followed by a much cooler period termed the Little Ice Age. Based on both temperature reconstructions using proxy measures and voluminous historical references it was accepted that the Medieval Warm Period had been a period when global temperatures were a bit hotter than today’s temperatures. Until about the mid-1990s the Medieval Warm Period was for climate researchers an undisputed fact. The existence of the Medieval Warm Period was accepted without question and noted in the first progress report of the IPCC from 1990.

This hockey stick effect diagram became the perceived wisdom once it was published, around 2005. Then two gentlemen came along who seem to have been pure researchers: they were curious. Forget the refusal to share data and the paranoia that followed.

… Steve McIntyre linked up with Ross McKitrick … and … [t]ogether McIntyre and McKitrick began to dig down into the data that Mann had used in his paper and the statistical techniques used to create the single blended average used to make the Hockey Stick. They immediately began to find problems.

… But McIntyre and McKitrick found one major error, an error so big that it invalidated the entire conclusion of the whole paper.

… what Mann had done was blend together lots of different proxy studies of the past climate going back 1,000 years and then produced an average of all these studies and a single graph showing the trend. Clearly the validity of the techniques used to blend together and average the different data from the various different studies was absolutely critical as to the validity of the final conclusions reached and the resulting Hockey Stick graph. This sort of blending of data sets is a very common statistical exercise and there are very well established techniques for undertaking such an exercise … Effectively what Mann’s odd statistical techniques did was to select data that had any sort of Hockey Stick shape and hugely increase its weight in the averaging process. Using Mann’s technique it meant that any data was almost certain to produce a spurious Hockey Stick shape.

Source: http://a-sceptical-mind.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-hockey-stick

I won’t go through the entire paper since I am really interested in the hockey stick effect rather than reopening the climate change debate. However, please go to the web page, linked to here several times and note the comments on Briffa’s work and the article by Mann, Bradley and Hughes, just referred to about simply as Mann.

Nevertheless, consider the following revised view of climate change:

Source: http://a-sceptical-mind.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-hockey-stick

The 20^th and 21^st centuries are NOT the warmest for 1,000 years and more.

Finally, I am not sure what has happened since McIntyre and McItrick did their work and whether Nobel Laureate Al Gore has revised his film, An Inconvenient Truth. After all, any right thinking person must have thought the same as I did when I saw that film: how can all of his graphs be so perfectly directed to prove something that simply could not be proven? Now we know why!

DW

Oven Trouble

If you have a double oven unit and you would like to bake or roast something make sure you put it in the correct oven otherwise it won't cook too quickly!

Another top tip!

DW

Scotch Pancakes

My mother was Scottish and she was a very good cook: I know, your mother was the best cook ever ... One thing that my mother cooked to perfection was Scotch pancakes and I have never been able to emulate such skill ... until now. I found the perfect recipe for Scotch pancakes the other day and as soon as the first one came out of the pan I knew how good the recipe is. Let me share that recipe now:

Ingredients

makes about 12 pancakes

120 grammes self raising flour

pinch of salt

30 grammes caster sugar

1 egg medium sized

1/4 pint milk

oil/butter for frying (butter burns at high temperatures so be careful although I prefer it)

Mix Flour

  ==> Salt

   ==> Sugar

Whisk Milk

  ==> egg

Combine and mix well Dry Ingredients

  ==> Liquid Ingredients

Get the pan hot and don't be disappointed when the first pancake turns out to be anaemic because it almost certainly will! Then medium heat should be perfect.

Put a little bit of oil (I used a third of a teaspoon) in your pan and then one tablespoon of mix at a time cook the pancakes: you will find after a minute or so bubbles rise and burst in the mix in the pan which is time to turn them over. Cook them again for another minute or whatever it takes ...

Put the cooked pancakes on a plate and cover them with a tea towel until all pancakes are ready ... then eat them with butter, marmalade, golden syrup ... whatever you prefer. In my opinion Scotch pancakes are equally delicious warm or cold.

Side Note: I made and ate six pancakes but there was mix left for four more so I left the mix overnight: don't do that, it doesn't improve I'm afraid.

DW

Don't Trust the Office of budget Responsibility

Don't trust them and here is why ... this is simulcast on Duncan's Diacritical Discussion blog too

It was autumn budget statement time in the House of Commons the other day and the Chancellor of the Exchequer went on and on about how bad it's going to be be for you and me!

Cut a long story short: if you know the HOCKEY STICK EFFECT then what you are about to see will shock you. The OBR data that I have seen and on which the Chancellor's statement and financial policies are based contain many hockey stick effect examples: here are just two.

In case you think I made these two charts up for a joke or for a more nefarious reason, take a look at my excel master.co.uk blog post from earlier today where you will see more evidence and a link to the source of the data I have used: go here ... http://excel2007master.wordpress.com/ and look for the post entitled UK Government Spoke the Words, here is some Excel Analysis.

I think it's possibly shocking and potentially massively damaging for all of us.

DW

As if!

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is the second and final novel by English author Anne Brontë, published in 1848 under the pseudonym Acton Bell.


Consider the likelihood that Anne Bronte even dreamed of putting the following words into one of her characters:


Leave right now!


Hard to believe? Well, just listen to part three of the adaptation of this story by the BBC, currently being aired daily during Woman's Hour.


Why didn't they finish the sentence, I wonder?


Leave right now y'all!


As Ed Reardon says, those 12 year olds at the BBC ...


DW

I Will Not Do That

I had a chat with a former colleague this evening and blah, blah, blah. Then he asked me to rate Muslims versus other people around the world. I asked him why he wanted me to do this and said, well you have worked in several Islamic countries ...

I told him I would never rate or compare religions as I think about and work with people: human beings, not Christians, Muslims, Buddhists ...

I am happy to say he stopped asking me about this idea then.

A few years ago someone asked me about my experiences of working in Africa: what was it like, working with all those black people? I asked, what black people? I said I taught students and worked with colleagues: no black people!

No false labels and enforced divisions, thank you.

DW

School Report

I found my secondary school report this evening too. I thought I had lost this report book many years ago.

The contents of the report book are revelatory!

DW

Deck of Cards

How about this? I was looking through one of the bags of odds and ends that I collected on a holiday in 1992 and found this unopened deck of cards from Cathay Pacific Airways.

DW

Is there Life on Mars? Irrelevant

I may be in a minority but I think the sending of a probe to Mars is a complete irrelevance.

Along with many millions of people across the world I sat up all night and watched the first ever moon landing on television. Of course, we admired the Americans for their achievement and for the next decade or two I believed space exploration was exciting and a worthwhile thing to do.

Recently, I have come to realise space exploration is futile if only for one reason: distance.

It takes us 8 months just to get to Mars let alone the edge of the universe. The distances and time involved in space exploration means that nothing useful can come of it.

I could go on but I won't! Please comment if you disagree and I will happily discuss it further.

DW

Well, Well, Well: it IS working!

Just after I moved house last year I switched on my DVD player only to find that it didn't work. It was a good quality player and I was disappointed. I did nothing about it as I was working away most of the time.

Half an hour ago I decided to take a look at the DVD player again. I thought, I am a meddler so what have I got to lose?

Let me keep a short story short. I am now watching the Shawshank Redemption on my DVD player and very old LG cathode ray tube television!

DW

Dear BBC, I KNOW Where Vienna is

It's happening! On top of all of the tripe that our twelve year olds at the BBC are wont to talk, they have started to use another one.

As you are probably aware, people from the USA will often say, eg, Paris, France or London, England. Now, the reason for that is that in the USA there are MANY cities called Paris so they say Paris, France to ensure the listener is aware that they are NOT talking about Paris, Maryland or Paris, Ohio ... far be it from me to suggest that it's to do with geographical ignorance.

Well, well, well, TWICE today I have heard a BBC reporter or presenter say ... Vienna, Austria. One even said something like Glasgow, Scotland.

Dear BBC, take it from me I KNOW where Vienna is and if ever I did not know the whereabouts of a town or city I could readily find out for myself were I sufficiently motivated to do so.

DW

Local Food: freakinomics article

I read the book Freakinomics when it came out a few tears ago. As far as i know it was the first place to read about drug dealers still having to live with their mothers! Interesting but many of their articles/chapters had racist overtones.

Here is another article of theirs that is hogwash: the Inefficiency of Local Food. Go to www.freakonomics.com to read the article.

These are my responses to that article: I tried to post them on the freakinomics site but their publish button was dead! There are many comments already there and some of them make excellent points too.

Not a good article at all. Several people have also pointed out the idea that local farms are for local food. So potatoes are better grown here rather than there: so what? Let's eat what we can grow and who says that we MUST trade our food with everyone else?

Here's something that I didn't see in this article: the current system encourages food waste. Not only is it very inefficient to produce meat versus grain but we throw away up to a third of all the food we buy anyway. Concentrating our minds on our own needs should help us to consider such waste.

More importantly, though, is the fact that the current system of absentee farming encourages a very large proportion of the population to become obese. As far as I know, obesity has not been factored into this article yet its reach is very wide ranging.

DW

The Twitchiest Girl?

On the flight home: sitting in a seat with extra leg room but the rest of my row was empty. Just minutes to go until the doors are due to be closed. Then swoosh! A family arrived. I am sorry but some babies are just not pretty, looking far too adult than baby like and here was such a baby.

The girl was 7 - 8 years old at a guess and she sat next to me. I have never met a twitchier child in my life. Talk about hyper active! Fortunately she slept much of the way but even then she spread herself and lolled where she wanted to loll!

Happily, the baby was calm and no one died.

DW

William Hague: tweets but no action

I am following William J Hague on twitter and every now and again feel the need to write and ask him something or inform him of something. I am sure he doesn't mind because I am not aggressive or offensive but the man needs help and he does ask for hints and tips from time to time.

He said there's to be a big pow wow on Afghanistan now that the Brits are leaving: I responded that he needs help because there's much more to Afghanistan than the military problems.

Just now he said he's calling former ambassadors and others together to discuss how to make British Embassies dead good. I just wrote and told him about my friend in Riyadh who had a passport/visa problem and was given NO HELP at all from the Brit Embassy. They told him either to go home to the UK or send his passport off to Dusseldorf ... and in a month it would come back. Why Dusseldorf? Is Dusseldorf a suburb of a British city now? Embassy jobs off shored now??

My friend solved his problem, by the way, without having to travel anywhere. You know how he did it? British Ambassador intervened? An Embassy clerk took pity on him? Nope: a SAUDI NATIONAL solved the problem for him.

What's going on in the FCO Mr Hague? Looks like a right mess to me.

DW

Will Self ... dead loss!

Well, he's not going to respond is he: this oh so smart Mr Will Self who cannot put his money where his mouth is.

Then again, my blog postings on this man come up on google immediately after Self's own entries ... I come in at umber 5 or 6 or so, page one! At least the world can read what he said v what he does!

No offence Mr Self but we deserve better.

DW