RIP Ron Murdy

I have just been told that my former father in law has died and I want everyone to know what a good man he was. Friendly and generous and an excellent grandfather to my children.

I haven't seen him for many years but he's not someone I have forgotten or can forget.

As a matter of faith I would like to believe he is now reunited with his wife Joan who died a few years ago: another one of life's good people.

DW


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Swine Flu

This swine flu outbreak is causing me pause for thought. In case it's not the same where you are, BBC News began its first (or very early) report by discussing a pandemic rather than just a problem or an outbreak ... a pandemic means the whole world is potentially engulfed by swine fu.

I have been watching this news unfold as the week has gone by and I am still perplexed as the World Health Organisation has moved the pandemic warning level from 3 to 4 to 5: there's only one level left, 6 and then it's officially a pandemic.

What's puzzling me is that there have been around just 160 deaths in Mexico, where the outbreak has started, one death outside of Mexico, in the USA. However, the current numbers, as at 29th April 2009, are:

• 13 cases in Canada
• 64 in the USA
• 26 in Mexico
• 2 in the UK
• 2 in Israel
• 3 in New Zealand
• 4 in Spain

Does this represent a level 5 pandemic warning? I am in Dubai this week with a risk manager/practitioner and he would rather point out that in the time it has taken to get to 114 reported cases in addition to the deaths, the number of people KILLED and/or badly injured in car accidents, accidents at work and murder, in addition to rape, robbery and so on are at inter galactic pandemic proportions by comparison.

Of course, I am well aware that this outbreak may become more serious and that prevention is better than cure; but aren't we seeing people on the news who are merely trying to make a name for themselves? Getting themselves in the public eye and wanting to stay there?

Obama the News Boy?

I was also rather puzzled yesterday when I saw President Obama being trotted out to tell people to cover their mouths when they cough and sneeze ... he's the President of the USA. Isn't that a bit of overkill?

DW

Blumenthal? Blumen'eck!

I have just watched Heston Blumenthal's "cookery" programme for the first time. I think it's good that his restaurant had to close and I'm not surprised 400 of his diners became ill. His food is deadly.

He faffs around in a pseudo scientific way with his food. Then he decimates it.

Roast potatoes? Grossly over boiled and the finished product looked to be heaving with fat. Crispy but very fatty.

Roast chicken? Again, massive amount of faffing and to ensure his chickens were especially deadly he injected the butter enhanced dripping from his chickens back into the bird.

No wonder we are now a nation of lard arses. Even his carrots were cooked in butter rather than being lightly boiled or steamed.

Appalling.

DW

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Watch the News: over and over and over

The BBC is a massive news gathering and presenting organisation. When I can I watch it wherever in the world I am. Of course, I prefer it to CNN, ABC, EuroNews and so on because now it is more relevant for me. It's not that long ago, however, when BBC World News had NOTHING to say about Britain: not part of the world then, apparently. It's much better now.

This post, however, is a bit of a moan. Odd that!

I have been awake for about 90 minutes already today and I have seen the same news reports on BBC World News at least three if not four times already. Moreover, some of the stories were run over and over again yesterday.

I wouldn't mind if they updated their stories but they don't: they simply run the same tape or articles again and again.

Here's some news for BBC News: it's BORING!

You can tell me to watch something else: erm, yes but my Arabic, Thai, Chinese, Czech, French, Russian, German ... are all rather weak so the local/other channels on offer are usually of little value to me.

DW

What do you get ...

... when you mix the following together in the Chiang Rai district of Thailand?

8 Thai women of varying ages
One farang of a certain age
A plastic bucket
An empty plastic oil can
A stick
An enamel bowl
An empty spirits bottle
A table
Sundry spoons
Sundry small bowls
An apparently infinite supply of Thai Whisky

Answer, you get a Songkran Karaoke.

Massive four hour entertainment that fell to a low point when the farang sang Weela Wallia and Strangers in the Night, fortunately not at the same time, however. Also fortunately no one understood any of the words or possible mistakes and a solid round of applause was earned each time!!

DW

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Songkran

If your sesne of humour extends to seeing people getting drenched from dawn to dusk, willy nilly and non stop then come to Thailand for the Songkran Festival.

Songkran is Thailand's week long annual water festival that people try to return to their home provinces to celebrate.

Groups of people station themselves at various places at the side of the road and they throw buckets of water at anything that moves, especially motorcyclists and anyone sitting in the truck part of a pick up.

Then you'll find some people wielding a hosepipe, which is especially potent at the traffic lights.

Just observe the different strategies adopted too:

Throw and hope
Mathematical arcs
Aggressive and horizontal

The drivers of pickups have much to answer for as they often slow down as their trucks approach the water throwers!

A final element is relentlessness: I think this is the funniest part, where one pickup can be targeted many times in a minute.

Good clean fun.

DW
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I did it: country 50 visited

Well, I did it! Not the country I had planned and not the way I expected but I have now visited my 50th country.

In my previous entry I said I could see Laos from our restaurant in Thailand. Well, when we took a trip up the Mekong River we came to Myanmar too. For part of the journey we could see Thailand, Laos and Myanmar all at the same time.

Then we hurtled back down river and stopped at the Lao market where we paid 20 Baht each to enter Laos and to buy some odds and ends from that market. I bought a Laos fridge magnet: for my sister in law.Well, I did it! Not the country I had planned and not the way I expected but I have now visited my 50th country.

In my previous entry I said I could see Laos from our restaurant in Thailand. Well, when we took a trip up the Mekong River we came to Myanmar too. For part of the journey we could see Thailand, Laos and Myanmar all at the same time.

Then we hurtled back down river and stopped at the Lao market where we paid 20 Baht each to enter Laos and to buy some odds and ends from that market. I bought a Laos fridge magnet: for my sister in law.

There you go. Where had I planned to go for my 50th country? I was going to go to Italy. Rome to be precise. That might be my 51st country. I will let you know.

DW

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Thai - Lao Border

For the record, I am currently sitting in a restaurant looking over the Mekong River towards Laos.

Country number fifty to look at but I cannot go there today as I am on a tour. We will be taking a trip down the Mekong shortly.

DW
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Sports Reporting

Andy Gray on Sky Sports 1 was commentating on the Man Spew v Aston Villa match yesterday and having long admitted that Villa were far the better team for the whole game, he launched into an orgiastic ululation over Renaldo’s second goal of the game.

What happened was that Ronaldo was having an indifferent game and when the ball came to him, on the edge of the Villa penalty area, he almost scuffed the ball which for some reason eluded everyone in the Villa team and trickled into the net.

Gray described it as a magnificent goal: in truth it was the sort of goal that a fifty year old would score.

Secondly, who is it at the BBC who thinks that anyone wants to hear an over excited radio commentator screeching at the scoring of an admittedly good goal by a Man Spew player?

Last week I wrote on Nick Robinson’s Blog (he is a political journalist at the BBC) after he showed his hand when trying to make President Obama think ill of Gordon Brown via a question at a press conference that he shouldn’t have asked. The BBC is supposed to be a public service broadcaster and not a broadcaster that wears its heart on its sleeve: reporting in a balanced manner.

Such wailing and ululation must stop.

DW

The new Diana: not in the slightest, she's much better than that

I didn't know whether to throw the radio out of the window, write to the BBC as Disgusted Tunbridge Wells or just accept that it was inevitable; but this is what happened on Thursday on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour programme.

Some ridiculous woman felt it important to make a point about Michelle (and that's not Meeshell as they are now pronouncing on the BBC today) Obama: she was being treated during her visit to London as if she were a latter day Diana Spencer. Why do I say she was a ridiculous woman? She is ridiculous because of what she went on to say:

Michelle Obama is the new Diana, intelligent, law school graduate, stylish ...

• Intelligent?
• Law School Graduate?
• Stylish?

Which of those three EVER applied to Diana? Yes, just the stylish one. As for intelligent and law school graduate, forgive me for speaking ill of the dead but no, Diana was a nursery ASSISTANT on her engagement to Charles Battenburg and rose to the dizzying heights of ONE O Level, in domestic science, if my information is correct.

I have no doubt that Michelle Obama is far removed from being another Diana: not only intelligent and a lawyer but her moral principles are probably of a much higher order than the woman they are now trying to compare her with.

Far from being a style guru, I would like to add that I didn't think that Mrs Obama was particularly stylish on her trip to London but doubtless there will be copies of her outfits in the shops within the week. Her formal wear looked very good, however.

DW

Duncan's Diacritical Discussion

Good news! Another fantastic blog is to hit the internet: Duncan's Diacritical Discussion.

Clearly this is a new blog from yours truly. The aim of this new blog is to split out the personal from the business aspects of life that I comment on.

Just keep watching and go to the menu on the home page of my web site, www.duncanwil.co.uk, to see the address of Duncan's Diacritical Discussion. It's already been set up, of course, but I will wait until my first substantive post before I reveal it.

DW

Gatesed Again?

I have upgraded to Internet Explorer 8 on my laptop and even though it starts my gmail account it does so with a blip: rendering of the CSS I THINK. I press Ctrl+F5 and the blip goes away.

I installed IE8 on my desktop about an hour ago and gmail won’t load at all now. I installed FireFox and it opened gmail with no problems at all.

When will Gates either get it right or stop interfering with other software that we do actually like to use even if he wants to perpetuate his world domination theme?

DW

Marks and Spencer’s Ordinary Chap Strikes Again

He’s in the news again: that ordinary man, Sir Stuart Rose, of M&S.

M&S shareholders would have the chance to vote on whether an independent chairman should be appointed by July next year under a resolution proposed by the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum [LAPFF] on Sunday.

Pressure has been building on M&S to resolve concerns about an eventual successor to Sir Stuart Rose, who was elevated from chief executive to executive chairman of the company last year.

Sir Stuart is scheduled to stay in the post, which combines the role of chief executive and chairman, until July 2011.

But the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum said on Sunday it would file a motion at the company’s annual meeting in July that would call for the appointment of an independent chairman by July 2010.

See: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3ad774e0-1c92-11de-977c-00144feabdc0.html

In an interview on the Today programme on Radio 4 this morning, the business correspondent asked questions of a representative of the LAPFF questions that suggest it is a good idea to leave Rose alone. Fair enough, the interviewer was trying to provide some balance to the arguments. However, I firmly believe that Rose has flouted corporate governance rules so much and his track record at M&S is so poor that the shareholders of M&S should simply tell the man to resign from one if not both of his posts forthwith.

My reasoning is that Rose has been bad for shareholders and that his track record over the last few years at the helm of M&S have been far from spectacular. Here is further evidence of my case:

Sir Stuart Rose, chairman of Marks and Spencer, admitted it had made several “basic shop keeping” mistakes when launching its troubled first store on the Chinese mainland [in Shanghai].

See: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2bac61ae-f6e2-11dd-8a1f-0000779fd2ac.html

The basic errors are actually fundamental errors and include stocking clothes that are far too big for the target market and a supply chain that failed to deliver the food they wanted to sell.

The fundamental nature of the error they made on the clothing they were selling was that they failed to appreciate that on average an Oriental person is significantly smaller than people from elsewhere. Nevertheless, what they did, under Rose’s leadership don’t forget, was to assume that the people of Shanghai were equivalent to the people of Hong Kong and stock their shops accordingly. After all, they all look the same to Rosie. Clot!

In the second of the FT articles I am referring to here, Rose is credited with:

“We need to get the A to Z of sizing right and we need better market research,” said Sir Stuart

Dear M&S Shareholder, your glorious leader sanctioned the opening of a shop in Shanghai complicit in the knowledge that inadequate market research had been done. A potentially extremely serious mistake.

Rose’s answer to all of this is reported to be that M&S will sit it out in Shanghai. Chairman and CEO, eh?

In the second of the two FT articles I have referred to here, Rose says several times that M&S made basic shop keeping errors. Exactly, Rose is a basic shop keeper who is occupying the strategist’s chair. Time to go Sir Stuart.

DW

Crap Cooking on the Telly

Pardon my French!

As I was stumbling through the television channels last night I came across a “cookery” programme called Eating with the Enemy. The theme of the programme is that some amateur “cooks” are supposed to prepare food of restaurant quality and have their efforts assessed by some “experts”.

The host of the programme is James Martin. To my mind, Martin is a very poor cook, although he calls himself a chef. He peppers his words with lovely, nice, my grandmother and so on. For example, I am going to prepare a nice dish of garlic mushrooms using a recipe I got from my grandmother. Lovely! Why should he qualify it by saying nice? After all, we don’t expect crap do we: although invariably that’s what we see. Grossly unhealthy food laced with fat, salt, carbohydrates … rubbish really.

It’s a bit like the signs you’ll see outside the average Pub in England now, Good Food … same applies: we don’t expect bad food do we and wouldn’t pay if they served it!

Anyway, it turns out that Martin is the creative genius behind the main dish these “cooks” have to prepare. Last night he asked them to make a burger. For crying out loud: how many people who go to a proper restaurant, not one of those non restaurants where they serve “fast food”; but a real restaurant, want to eat a burger. You can see what I mean about the quality of the host!

So these “cooks” all nanced around “cooking”. Only one contestant was any good and he was a middle aged Jock. He did well in my opinion. Not like the one who couldn’t even cook a burger all the way through. Then there was the one who rested her burger on a rosti bed. Now, a rosti is shredded or grated potato out of which the liquid is squeezed and then shallow fried until crisp. Note the operative word, CRISP. So this “cook” had also prepared some mushrooms in a white wine sauce. Of course, she poured gallons of sauce all over the burgers and drowned it and the rosti underneath. Meaning there was nothing but soggy rosti.

There was a “cook” who was presented as someone who could prepare excellent choux pastry but for some reason she decided to prepare a dish with shortcrust pastry this time and it was rubbish: she had no idea of what to do. In the middle of her pastry nonsense, Martin shuffled up and showed her a “Chef’s trick” of how to roll out pastry between two sheets of cling film: a tip he got from Gary Rhodes but never admitted to!

I hate to be sizist but one of the “Enemy” was morbidly obese: I missed the start of the programme but I think he is a journalist. He is a good advert for this programme as the food was unbalanced and astonishingly high in fat and calories. However, I really do not think someone who is morbidly obese should be allowed to take part in a food programme.

DW

Magical TV Moment

There was a magical moment on the television last night. It was the day in the year when children are given the chance to present the news and act as reporters for a day.

Some children were given the chance to interview Robert Peston, the BBC’s business correspondent. One child put to Peston a fantastic point:

My mum thinks you are going to be the next Mr Darcy …

The look on Peston’s face was absolutely priceless!

Classic reporting and classic moment.

Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings …

DW

Osbourne Gaffe

George Osbourne, a British politician, said yesterday that he wanted a Conservative government to borrow its way out of debt.

Hey, George, such an insight, such a policy. Where can I vote for you?

Not!

DW

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Lighten Everyone’s Life

An article in this week’s Economist is rather illuminating! Pun intended.

I had a discussion with my neighbour Malcolm recently just after the news broke that the European Commission was going to outlaw incandescent light bulbs in favour of the much more energy efficient compact fluourescent light (CFL). Malcolm told me the things that his friends were saying about the new bulbs: expensive, low quality light, civil liberties and how some of them were hoarding the incandescent bulbs.

In my living room there are six CFL bulbs and one incandescent bulb. The incandescent bulb is in a socket that is attached to a dimmer switch that CFLs can’t cope with!

I was able to demonstrate to Malcolm that six CFLs cost around the same as the ONE incandescent bulb in my living room when operated at full power. I also showed Malcolm the difference in quality of light as between the one incandescent bulb and just two CFL bulbs (my wall lights have two bulbs in each and they cannot be dontrolled independently).

Malcolm was so surprised at what I was able to demonstrate and I can only hope that he shared his new found knowledge with his friends! I will ask him at our weekly coffee and chocolate biscuit session this week!

Well, things are marching on apace in the world of the light bulb apparently:

http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13315818&source=hptextfeature

Light emitting diodes (LEDs) are moving in the direction of our living rooms. Currently very expensive at around £40 a bulb they are said to have a life of 45,000 hours: as opposed to the average 1,000 hours for an incandescent bulb and 10,000 hours or so for a CFL bulb.

In my living there are six CFLs and one incandescent bulb. I can put them on in various combinations:

incandescent only

two CFLs … plus the incandescent

four CFLs … plus the incandescent

In my case, by cutting out the incandescent bulb and having just two CFLs I save £24.966 a year in electricity costs assuming I have the lights on for 12 hours a day for 365 days a year. Multiply that the number of bulbs and so on throughout your house and you will quickly appreciate the savings you make, the savings in electricity you make and how the Economist article says that by using LEDs in the ways suggested in the article, 130 power stations in the USA alone would no longer be required.

Here are a few more calculations to help you just in case you think that CFLs are ECONOMICALLY a bad idea: the number at the top of each column is the number of bulbs in use

 

Costs and Savings	1	2	3	4	5
Incandescent 100 Watt	32.85	65.7	98.55	131.4	164.25
CFL 12 Watt bulbs	3.942	7.884	11.83	15.77	19.71
Savings	28.908	57.82	86.72	115.63	144.54

DW

The Fly in the Urinal

This is boy talk: you have probably seen those urinals in various places which have a picture of a house fly glazed into them.

Well it’s interesting what one just accepts without questioning why. I have seen these flies in bogs many times and have often meant to ask why they were there; but who does one ask such things? Well, today I discovered an answer.

On a radio discussion programme today an Economist reported seeing the flies at Schipol Airport in Amsterdam (yes, they are there too!) and he said they are there to capture the concentration of the boys and men using those urinals. The main purpose of those flies, however, is that we see these flies as a challenge and will aim to widdle all over them … rather than spraying in the urinal, the floor, the wall, our neighbour’s shoes ...

The result is that floor widdling has been reduced by 80%. Consequently, the floors in the toilets in Schipol and elsewhere are cleaner and less smelly. Whoever thought of that deserves a medal.

It’s a pity this hasn’t caught on here in the UK as we have what rank as some of the smelliest public toilets in the developed and much of the developing world.

Is there an equivalent for girls I wonder? Over to you ladies!! Not necessarily toilets either, ladies.

DW

Let them be Furious

I have just read this in today's Financial Times:

Bankers on Wall Street and in Europe have struck back against moves by US law makers to slap punitive taxes on bonuses paid to high earners at bailed out institutions.

Senior executives on both sides of the Atlantic on Friday warned of an exodus of talent from some of the biggest names in US finance, saying the “anti American” measures smacked of “a McCarthy witch hunt” that would send the country “back to the stone age”.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4ff2f77e-1584-11de-b9a9-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1

My responses are as follows:

• the banking industry has demonstrated a dearth of talent over the last five years
• where are these bankers thinking of going
• who would want them to do what they do so badly
• what makes them persist in the notion that they are any good

To paraphrase WS Gilbert

As some day it may happen that a victim must be found,

I've got a little list, I've got a little list

Of society offenders who might well be underground,

And who never would be missed, who never would be missed!

There's the pestilential bankers who contract for bonuses

All financiers who have grubby hands and act like callouses

...

The operative part of that quip from The Mikado is that these bankers "never would be missed".

I would like a few bankers to write here and explain why they feel they deserve their massive salaries and bonuses ON THE BASIS OF THEIR PERFORMANCE. I also want them to exclude any reference to contractual obligations. After all, I am sure I am right in saying that no contract exists which includes the phrase, in the event of the collapse of the bank, no bonus is due or even, in the event of a forced Government bail out of the bank, no bonus is due.

Plonkers they are!

DW

Air Ambulance or not?

What I am about to say is controversial on the one hand and simple and straightforward on the other.

There has just been an article on the radio that came from mid Wales: on the unofficial border between North and South Wales, they said. Sorry but because of my unfamiliarity with the Principality and the accent, I didn't catch the name of the place.

Anyway, the point of this post is that they discussed the air ambulance service. This community is remote and they said that even by the fastest possible car, it would take an hour to get from the town/village to the nearest Accident and Emergency (A&E) Hospital.

I think this is something that now needs to be asked: merely because an air ambulance can be provided, should it be? By the same token, merely because very complicated microsurgery and its attendant after care can be provided, should it be?

Some of the arguments, rehearsed in the radio programme, include that without the air ambulance service, someone, say, suffering a stroke or heart attack would miss the golden hour opportunity. Therefore, if a victim of a stroke takes more than an hour to get to A&E, their chances of survival are significantly reduced. Alternatively, if they survive the golden hour they might have a poorer quality of life than otherwise.

The lady in the radio article argued as if there is a right to the air ambulance service. I don't agree: I don't agree that the air ambulance can be provided just because it can be. Why do I say this? I say it because of the opportunity costs: that is, if we provide an air ambulance service then, in the context of finite and limited budgets, something else is either not provided or is provided to a lesser extent than otherwise.

The extreme situation here is that I firmly believe that the National Health Service (NHS) should provide a preventive and primary care service first and foremost. The expensive additional services such as an air ambulance and microsurgery can appear fantastic and can save lives and limbs. However, without a major rationalisation of the budgeting system, the basic services that I have always expected to be provided may no longer be available to me.

I grew up with a General Practitioner service in which my parents could call the GP at any time of the day or night and that GP would attend us at home if necessary or would guarantee an appointment at his surgery. This type and level of service is no longer available.

I have had a limited number of conversations with a GP who defends his resistance to carrying out calls to patients' homes because some patients are perfectly ambulant and should make the effort to get to the surgery. To what extent is the GP here justified in his approach that it should be the GP who makes the assessment of whether to attend a patient on the basis that they can afford the time and effort to get to the surgery? One of the GP's arguments is based on the opportunity cost concept: that he could visit old and infirm people at their homes rather than "wasting his time" attending someone who could get to the surgery under his own steam.

Well, there you are: some of the arguments that came to me as I was listening to that radio programme.

DW