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

Wacky Phone Names

In an idle moment at Riyadh airport last night I asked my phone to see who it could find via Bluetooth. Just find, not to hack and not to pester.

I found 15 other phones. Most phones were called Phone! One phone had an alphanumeric name and a couple had very ordinary names, like Rebecca.

Three names stood out:

Cinderella
Black Dragon
Old fart! (The ! Was part of the name)

Hey ho!

DW

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Face the Jib

Not to like the cut of someone's jib is to take a dislike to them or not to trust them. It's official: you can tell a lot about someone by the cut of their jib.

An experiment with a very large sample has shown that your creditworthiness is found in your face.

Bankers etc will either not lend to you or they will charge you an average of an extra 1.82% interest on a loan if your face doesn't fit.

There you are.

DW
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miB (anag)

I am about to fly with my least favourite airline. Splew tri raza. At check in I presented my frequent flyer card (I am at level two with this lot) thinking it would count for something.

As is my wont, I asked for maximum leg room (remember, I am 1.91 m tall) and at least an aisle seat. As he turned his back on me to attend to something else, cleary more important than me, he retorted with a muttered, I can't promise maximum leg room.

He tapped away at his keyboard and then handed me my boarding card.

Being the old cove that I am I said with a lilt, is that a good seat? With sneer he replied, it's an aisle.

I waited for the boarding pass for the second leg of my journey home. Nothing. Not even, have a nice flight as he parried my request for that pass with, you'll get that in London.

Thank you. Goodbye. I said.

I will be interested to see who got the extra legroom seats as I was only about the tenth passenger to check in.

I thought frequent flyer schemes were two way affairs:

Someone flies frequently, in a loyal way, with an airline
The airline is grateful

Apparently not. This sort of treatment rankles.

DW

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Britain's Health Problems

Two worrying articles on the BBC web site concerning the health of British people.

The first article shows the findings of a survey from Britain's fire service. It reveals hundreds and hundreds of cases where firemen have been called out to help to move grossly obese people from home to hospital because ambulance crews cannot cope with them.

Read http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7939630.stm 

The second article discusses the feelings of a GP in Scotland who believes that there ought to be a tax on chocolate because of the effect its over consumption is having on the nation's girth.

Read http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/7938282.stm

I have responded to this second article by saying that chocolate is the tip of the iceberg. Just take a look at the tens of thousands of rubbish food items on sale in all supermarkets. Processed food, food high in fat, food high in salt and artificial additives and preservatives. Food low in fibre. And so on. Then take a look at the trolleys being pushed around the shop and finally look at the size of the people pushing them. It's a disease now. We really do need our corner shops back: shops that cannot afford to stock massive amounts of the nonsense WE DO NOT NEED. Shops that are owned and managed by people who know what they are talking about and selling.

With proper shops back on the high street, we will spend so much less and all of our savings can be channelled into further enhancing our life styles. We will spend less because we will not buy so many things that we don't need because they will not be available. We will eat less and be slimmer and healthy.

DW

Won't Somebody Stop Me?

(Which film did that come from?)

The sixth form common room brigade, aka the Conservative Party, is at it again. They have set up a web site which has the sole purpose of writing and sending a letter of apology that purports to have been written by Gordon Brown.

I wonder what these people, who, don't forget, may well be in government before too long, are thinking with their jolly japes.

If Prime Ministers and Ministers were ever required to apologise for their transgressions, we would hear nothing else from them. That is predicated on them being able to tell the truth, of course.

Are we meant to believe that Conservative governments and Prime Ministers have nothing to apologise for? Churchill? (Read Roy Jenkins' dreadful but extensive biography of Churchill for a LOT of evidence. read my review of that book here). Thatcher? From the days when Thatcher was Education Secretary and deprived many poor people of their main source of nutrition in school dining rooms (Maggie Thatcher Milk Snatcher still resonates) all the way to her dreadful and divisive economic and industrial relations policies while she was PM.

What we are seeing here is a bankrupt political party being led by a marketing man who in turn is leading a group of people who have never done a real day's work in their lives.

Even if you think you are a died in the wool conservative, please think very carefully about voting for this lot. On the other hand, my previous post on GCSE and A Level examinations is a warning to anyone who is thinking about voting back in Brown's Hiberno centric champagne socialists.

DW

A Level Exams and GCSE Exams for Sale

Want to gain an unfair advantage in your GCSE and A Level Examinations here in the UK? It’s official now, you can pay a Chief Examiner to come to help you to pass his/her examination.

I have been in correspondence with two MPs over the last three or four years and the upshot is that they have told me that it is official UK Government policy to allow Chief and other examiners to sell their services to anyone for personal private gain.

This means that these examiners can hold private revision sessions with anyone who is about to take one of their examinations.

Imagine the luxury and advantage: the very person in charge of your exam will tell you exactly what you need to do in order to pass his/her exam. Don’t worry, it’s all done behind closed doors and all you have to do is to pay the examiner a fee.

What happens if you can’t afford to pay? Sorry, you’re on your own.

Never mind, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair before him, have presided over this system for years now. The two MPs I have been writing to are Evan Harris, Lib Dem MP for Oxford West and Abingdon and Linda Riordan, Labour MP for Halifax. The final approval for this elitist system came from Sarah McCarthy Fry who is a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Schools and Learners.

My view of this system? In the letter I have just sent to Mrs Riordan I say this:

On behalf of honest and hard working teachers, parents and pupils I feel unable to support any government, any MP and any examinations system that essentially is supporting the following approach:

• Elitism in education:
• Exclusivity in education;
• Encouraging examiners to work ex officio for personal private gain;
• Encouraging students and candidates for examination to expect that they may meet examiners for their chosen subjects for personal private directed guidance in order to gain an advantage in an examination;
• Cheating;
• Immoral behaviour;
• Unprofessional behaviour.

It is obvious that there is nothing more for me to say to you on this matter since it is clear that the government is fostering lower and lower standards. Moreover Secretaries of State, Under Secretaries of State, Members of Parliament and those in a position to gain financially from this situation are all quite happy to ensure that the privileged few who can afford to pay will receive a better standard of preparation for an examination than those who can't I cannot see the socialist approach in this system.

While the standard of UK examinations and so on plummet, you are perfectly free to buy your way through the examinations system. I wonder how many people think this is a good approach to end of compulsory education and pre university examinations? I wonder how many people believe that the UK’s schools examination system is now of third world standard? A Professor of an overseas University said that to me, by the way, on hearing about my campaign.

Shocking!

DW

Sport and Politics

Well, I hope these people who march under a political banner to sports events are satisfied.

Now that we have had those 12 year olds trying to sabotage the Beijing Olympics and so on, there are murderers in Pakistan who feel that they can target a cricket team with a view to murder. Tragically, some of the people whose job it is to protect the Sri Lankan cricket team have died as a result of a gun attack.

I appreciate that this is an extreme example of political demonstration but then again those Anti Chinese demonstrators were pretty violent in some of the actions they took.

I said last year and I’m saying it again, keep your poxy political hands off our sport: whoever you are. Go and find another politician to fight with not an innocent sports person or team or organisation.

DW

Inflationary Journalism

Last week I heard two separate assessments of the UK's unemployment level.

Laurie Taylor correctly said the there are currently around 2,000,000 people unemployed in the UK.

On the same day some clown BBC News reporter related the situation as unemployment heading to 3,000,000.

Dear Clown Reporter, you have, at a stroke, inflated the level of inflation by 50%. Even if unemployment does reach 3,000,000 it is going to take some time to get there. Moreover, I wonder who it was at the BBC who allowed you to make a forecast that might well have been spurious, ill founded or even malicious.

Won't someone protect us from the lowering of standards of journalism at the BBC and elsewhere in the media?

DW



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Fat Cat Pay

Sir Fred Goodwin is the UK pariah of the moment. I sincerely hope he gets his come uppance and that they take all of that nonsense pension off him. As they said yesterday, it’s not a pension, it’s severance pay. Very generous pay too. I wonder how he has the gall even to think that he deserves that vast amount of money?

There is an excellent article in the Washington Post that’s well worth a read, URL below. A couple of points of interest from that article.

Note the comments about John Thain … a couple of months ago, Wall St Wallahs were saying that Thain deserved his $10 million bonus but the wind has changed now:

Take the now infamous example of the recently ousted Merrill Lynch chief John Thain, who not only splurged on his office decor but also had the audacity to propose a $10 million bonus for himself. In recognition of what? A year's work in which the company continued to make bad business decisions, lost about 80 percent of its value, sold itself to Bank of America to stave off possible collapse and appears to have seriously damaged its buyer's franchise? After a less than heroic performance, Thain's grasping for $10 million,  presumably because he thought it could be had, represents what has come to be expected from America's business leaders.

The author makes two more good points worthy of note:

In 1960, the ratio of CEO pay at large companies to that of the President of the United States was about 2 to 1. In 2007, it was more than 20 to 1. In 1980, executives at large companies made about 40 times what the average worker made. Last year, CEOs made about 360 times more than the average worker.

And maybe here is the most telling statistic that possibly underlies everything that has happened in the financial world and at the C level in many companies:

On the NYSE today, the average share is held for less than a year, as compared to about five years in 1960 and two years in 1990.

There’s more, in this well written article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/06/AR2009020602794.html

DW

Water, water everywhere …

Can you complete that line from what is possibly one of the most famous poems in the English language?

Well, take a look at this page on the Economist web site and think about your role in man’s consumption of water http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13176056&CFID=44501457&CFTOKEN=26124267

You might find it shocking reading and I recommend you take a look at the comments that follow the article too as they make some interesting additional points. Some of the additional points are healthily sceptical and you should take them into account.

DW

The Dog Whisperer

If you've got a dog and it doesn't seem to behave properly, you need to realise one thing: it's your fault!

Take a look at the programme The Dog Whisperer on National Geographic Wild to see how Cesar Millan deals with dogs via their owners.

My favourite programme at the moment.

DW


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Duncadoodle do!

I am now going to take a potentially huge risk as I bare my soul to the world.

I have just finished a lengthy telephone conversation and during that call I did a lot of doodling … as you can see in the graphic that follows. I have hidden the original material on that page because it is someone’s personal contact details.

Any doodle psychologists care to let me know what is going on in my tiny mind?

PLEASE, I know cheap remarks are easy to make but you ought to refrain from making them. Seriousness only is the order of the day.

DW

Andy Gray During the Penalty Shoot out at Wembley

He said, "You see, that's football", when the goalie saved a penalty!!

I'm surprised he didn't say, "That's what you've got to do"!

DW


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Bread, Loved Ones and Keble Crackers

Bread

For the first time in a long time I baked my own bread the other day. Easy and the results are brilliant.

Loved Ones

Evelyn Waugh wrote a brilliant satire on the American Undertaker business called The Loved Ones many years ago.

Over the last year or so the 12 year olds on the radio and television have exterminated our friends and relatives in favour of LO.

If anyone is left to mourn my death, please call them friends and relatives.

Keble Crackers

A couple weeks ago a woman was interviewed on the Today programme on Radio 4 who was talking about the dumbing down of women in films. I was so shocked by this woman's appalling use of, like, language yeah, that I went to the Keble College, Oxford University, web site.

This woman is a senior academic and used to be a Professor of English at another University.

I wrote to the woman and asked her why on earth she spoke the way she did. I also asked if her students could understand her. Very direct of me I know.

To her credit she replied to my message. However, she tried to accuse me of confusing her language with her feminist message. My message missed its mark and she remained completely unbowed, I am afraid.

DW


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Philosophy?

Is this philosophy? What follows is a variation on something you are almost certain to have seen before.

We’ll be fine but let’s knock these out, and to end a little [Redacted] Zen for you to ponder: If a dog barks in the woods and a tree falls on him, did someone clap their hands?

Source: http://molls.tumblr.com/

I like it anyway!

DW

Computing Top Tip

Let this be yet another one of my most valuable lifetime top tips.

Young Dima told me before I went to visit him in Bristol this week that his computer was running very slowly and that he needed to reinstall Windows. He asked me if he could have my old laptop.

When I got to his place I took a look at the computer and after a bit of digging and delving I realised that there was something starting up when the thing was booted that was going round and round in a loop for as much as 30 minutes. Dima knew the sloth but he never got to understand the reason behind it.

I identified vsmon.exe as the culprit and a simple search online showed that Zone Alarm Firewall software was the cause. To cut a long story short, we uninstalled and then reinstalled ZA Firewall software and bingo, problem solved.

The moral of the story is that it doesn’t take a lot to track down an error like this and the chances are that if your computer suffers, someone else has also already suffered from the same problem. That often means that a solution is also waiting for you. Reinstalling the software is just one option in the case of the well known vsmon.exe problem.

DW

Guantanamo Jamboree?

Now, I didn't SEE the news yesterday but am I right in thinking that the Ethiopian resident of the UK who was released from Guantanamo Bay detention centre was flown home in an RAF aeroplane and was accompanied by several immigration and foreign office staff?

If that is true, why did they do that?

I understand he is a free man and so could have been put on a scheduled airline and met at the gate at Heathrow ... he even went to RAF Northolt I think.

Then again, is this part of the boosting of the economy we need now? Increasing public spending so that someone else will benefit too?

DW

The Car Industry

This is my message to the world vis a vis the car industry.

Banks fell apart, the housing market is still falling apart and the car market is in serious trouble.

The banks have been very badly managed and essentially unregulated since Margaret Thatcher and Ronal Reagan were let loose on the world.

The housing market was fed by the rotten banking system.

The car market has been fed by the severe inflation that became a  normal part of the housing market. Now we are seeing the pay off: many billions of Pounds are being asked by the car industry to prop it up.

For decades, the car industry has suffered from over capacity as every car manufacturer has expanded more and more. GM has to be allowed to fail now as the worst of the worst. One UK car manufacturer may well have to be allowed to fail. Don't worry, any slack that GM and the other one leave behind will be taken up by what's left.

I don't know how many tens or hundreds of thousands of us were encouraged to remortgage our houses to "release the equity" but as they did so, they spent the money on new kitchens, on holidays and on cars. Of course, many people will have used it to pay off (consolidate!) their debts. This is what has kept large parts of the UK economy booming over the last decade or so. Now that these three avenues of the economy have been revealed for what they were, we are suffering now.

Bad managers, bad economists, bad politicians.

DW

Counting to one Billion

We used to ask this question as children, if you could count from one to one million in increments of one second, how long would it take you to get to one million?

The answer is 11.57407 days.

Now that we are throwing around out billions and hundreds of billion of Pounds, Dollars and so on, answer this question: if you could count from one to one billion in increments of one second, how long would it take you to get to one billion?

The answer is ... probably a shock to you.

The point of this post: I want everyone to appreciate just what one billion really represents. It is a huge number. So, when these bankers and others who are wasting our hard earned cash are prepared to spend it by the billion, you've got some idea of what they're doing now.

DW

The answer is ... 31.07979 YEARS

Do YOU waste all of this food?

Of course you don't but just look at this:

A survey commissioned for Love Food Hate Waste suggests that British workers are shelling out £5.5bn on shop bought lunches each year, while they leave almost the same value of perfectly good lunch foods at home to go off.

Ham, bread, cheese, cold meats and other typical sandwich and lunchbox foods such as fruit, crisps and yogurts are forgotten and eventually binned, to the tune of £5.06bn every year**, while we buy sandwiches and take aways at lunchtime.

2.1 million tonnes of food fit for a packed lunch is heading to landfill each year, including:

• £821m worth of breads (530,000 tonnes)
• £94m worth of sliced meats (23,000 tonnes)

But the nation seems split on packed lunches. The research shows that nearly a third of workers (28%) say they never bring in lunch from home, while another third (33%) say they take lunch to work every working week day.

See: http://www.wrap.org.uk/wrap_corporate/news/buying_lunch_costs.html

In other words, there are some people who've got some bread, butter, lettuce, ham, cheese and so on in their cupboards and fridges. However, rather than spending just a few minutes a day putting something decent together with the food they have already spent their money on, they throw that away and then go to a shop that sells them something that will include good food together with seasonings and preservatives etc that they do not need.

Who are these people?

Read the rest of that article for more shocking stats on the food that we throw away. You will also see a link on that page to http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/ which is well worth a look even though it's a bit brown rice and sandals in parts. The message is clear. There are people in the world who think they have a right to grab some of our scarce resources and waste them. Some of these people are bleating now because they have fallen on hard times for a while and are looking for someone to help them out with cash and other things. As it says on the love food web site, if only you hadn't wasted all of that food, you could have saved yourself more than GBP300 a year.

On the other hand, as someone who lives alone I need to add that British supermarkets and other shops cater badly for singletons. So, loaves of bread can be too much and the last few slices can go furry before one gets the chance to eat them. In that case, let the birds and other wild life eat them, don't just put them in the bin.

Then again, though, how about the dabbawallas of Mubai: you'll never waste another meal again if you adopt that system. Find a video on that system by taking a look at www.economist/audiovideo/asia (I think you don't need a subscription to view that short video of how the dabbawalla system works). Every day 5,000 dabbawallas deliver 175,000 tiffin boxes to their respective destination with an error rate of just one in 6 million. That's one error every 34 days or around 10 errors a year during which a total of 63,875,000 tiffin boxes will have been delivered. Better than Six Sigma that!

DW

HP: the saga goes on

Just before I left for my latest trip, I wrote to the Director of Customer Relations at Hewlett Packard in the UK. I explained how they have got my laptop more than I have etc.

Yesterday I got a call from their complaints department and she assured me that she was monitoring my case personally and that if they keep it more than 8 weeks, I get a new comp. They are waiting for a spare part for my existing machine.

Just in Time? Kaizen? Six Sigma? All of these buzz words and techniques and more must be floating around HP and yet for the want of a button of some sort, they are prepared to give me a brand new laptop ... if I'm lucky ... I've only got to wait another two weeks as they have had my machine for 40 days now. I really don't want that one back as it's a disaster.

What a shower!

DW

Cheating Footballers ... Again

Just seen a rerun of Steve Gerrard diving in the penalty box in a Merseyside derby from a couple of years ago.

The shame of it and the simplistic fooling of the referee.

DW


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Pitter Pat

Don't put that pat of butter you took from the restaurant in your trouser pocket in case you forget to take it out until many melted and runny hours later.

Top tip, that! Not that I did that of course. It was a friend.

DW


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Family Tree

I have started the quest to compile my family tree. Only using online resources so far but have made some good progress. I have got back to 1778.

I am aiming at filling the generations up until the start of 19th Century or so, so 1778 is about the limit.

So far they're all labourers with a sprinkling of professional types. No ne'er do wells that I know of!! Apart from me of course.

DW


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Wembley

Did you know that you can see the arch over Wembley Stadium from Heathrow Terminal 1? Maybe other terminals too but I haven't noticed and I'm not going there today!

DW


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Travel Insurance

In the old days we couldn't travel anywhere abroad without travel insurance: we had to have it. We all railed against it because there was no choice about the matter and therefore the cost of travel insurance was ridiculously high. Monopolies for you!

I have been watching warnings on the television all day about the perils of travelling abroad without any insurance: there has just been a piece on Inside Out on BBC 1 showing a few very unfortunate people who have had serious accidents whilst travelling.

The problems being faced by people injured or falling ill abroad include being stranded in a foreign land, possibly alone, in a hospital providing just the basic level of care or even worse in some cases. Alternatively, there are stories of six figure sums having to be spent to repatriate someone.

I have travelled without travel insurance for the last 20 years or so on the ground that I refused to pour far too much money into something I always thought I didn't need. I certainly didn't want to tempt fate!

Following today's knee jerks I bought a year's worth of travel insurance. It wasn't that expensive and it covers a wide variety of problems. It also includes business cover for some of the things that one doesn't need as a holiday maker: loss or breakage of my computer for example.

I really don't want to have to claim on this insurance for any reason of course. Then again, I really don't want to find myself dumped in a hospital bed in a foreign land being treated in only a rudimentary way without the wherewithal of getting home.

Think carefully.

DW

That FSA Chap

The number two man at the Financial Services Authority (FSA) has resigned this morning following a bit of a charade over whether he sacked a prophetic whistleblower at HBOS or not.

Sir James Crosby says he has resigned to protect the FSA since he is innocent.

Reminds me of that poor and uneducated chap on television many years ago who was arrested for some heinous crime. The poor man had no idea what was happening to him but to try to make his life as tolerable for himself as possible, he decided to admit to the crime. He said this, though, as the police started to take him off to the cop shop:

OK, I'm guilty but I didn't do it.

Sir James?

DW

These are fantastic

I have just come across this list in a discussion forum and couldn’t resist sharing them: if they are true they are frightening. In any case some of them are creasingly funny.

 

Disorder in the American Courts

These are from a book called 'Disorder in the American Courts' and are things people actually said in court, word for word, taken down and now published by court reporters that had the torment of staying calm while  these exchanges were actually taking place.

ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
WITNESS: I forget.
ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot?

ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he  doesn't know about it until the next morning?
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?

ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the twenty-year-old, how old is he?
WITNESS: He's twenty, much like your IQ.

ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken?
WITNESS: Are you sh***ing me?

ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time?
WITNESS: Getting laid

ATTORNEY: She had three children, right?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: How many were boys?
WITNESS: None.
ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?
WITNESS : Your Honour, I think I need a different attorney. Can I hire a new attorney?

ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?
WITNESS: By death.
ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?
WITNESS: Take a guess.

ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual?
WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard.
ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female?
WITNESS: Unless the Circus was in town I'm going with male.

ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?
WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.

ATTORNEY: Doctor, how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?
WITNESS: All of them. The live ones put up too much of a fight.

ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to?
WITNESS: Oral.

ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.
ATTORNEY: And Mr Denton was dead at the time?
WITNESS: If not, he was by the time I had finished.

ATTORNEY: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?
WITNESS: Are you qualified to ask that question?

And finally:

ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.

Evolution: Darwin or Deity?

Rather a surprising set of results come from The Economist’s Daily Chart for 5^th February, http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displaystory.cfm?subjectid=7933596&story_id=13062613:

 

In Iceland about 80% of people believe evolution to be true

In Britain the figure is just under 75%

Germany 70%

Ireland around 65%

 

But

 

The USA around 40%

Turkey about 26%

 

There is a BIG gap between these latter two and the next lowest believing country, Greece, which stands at about 55%.

 

How does one account for that? Is this a sign of strength or of weakness? Does it matter?

 

All of these issues are discussed in the comments section at the end of this short article. Daily Chart view.

 

DW

 

Mad Madoff

Firstly, the relative trivia: have you noticed how the 12 year olds at the BBC are calling this man Bern’ard Madoff as if they were Americans rather than the B’ernard that we know?

 

Secondly, I have just found time to start reading up on some of the technical things that Madoff was or wasn’t doing with the $50 billion that he is supposed to have squandered. He is accused of running a Ponzi Scheme. However, in an article in the FT there is a fascinating piece in which they run through the thought processes of Wall Street wallahs as they studied Madoff and his mad cap work. They ascribed some fancy finance footwork to the man when he was clearly pussyfooting and not cutting a rug at all.

 

For example,

 

Mr Madoff’s returns appeared to many to be too good to be true (see chart below). But advocates claimed they were the result of a “split-strike conversion strategy” that used derivatives to minimise risk, while intelligence from his market-making business allowed him to time investments almost perfectly.

 

The SEC investigated Madoff in 2005 and again in 2007 and found nothing (the chickens in this scenario started to come home to roost this week too! See the whistleblower snippet below) so:

 

Several investors believed he might be front-running – illegally trading ahead of customers of the market-making division – but many stayed with him anyway. “He had a clean record from the SEC and it wasn’t our job to spot this,” says one.

 

Some funds offered a more complex explanation. Split-strike conversion enabled him to profit from periods of rising share prices by setting up what was called a “bull spread”. This involved buying shares in 40-50 companies to mimic the blue chip S&P 100 index, while using put options to protect against falls. The cost of these options was covered by selling call options, limiting the potential upside.

 

My reaction at this point was to think that if only he had been doing this sort of thing, maybe he could really have returned some of the profits that he did pay back albeit within a Ponzi Scheme: a bit like burglars and the like who put huge amounts of effort into their robberies that could just as well be channelled into something legitimate.

 

In a US Congressional hearing this week, a man labelled as a whistleblower in the Madoff case, sorry his name eludes me, made the point that the graph of Madoff’s returns fell on a straight and 45 degree line. This man went on to say that everyone else’s equivalent graph would rise and fall with or against or generally in tune with the market: here’s the link for the kind of graph that gentleman was talking about

 

http://media.ft.com/cms/aa499604-ebd3-11dd-8838-0000779fd2ac.gif You can see what he means and why he said he warned the SEC over a ten year period that there was something rotten in the state of Madoff.

 

There’s a nice time line summary of events here, by the way: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/cc1ceb9e-ebd5-11dd-8838-0000779fd2ac,dwp_uuid=b7a8d610-caaf-11dd-87d7-000077b07658.html

 

Regulators, lawyers and Parliamentarians have all tried to make these things impossible to get away with but Madoff is here, Satyam (who??? ... watch this space) surfaced around the new year in a cash reporting scandal in India. The Sarbanes Oxley Act from the US, for example, Corporate Governance rules in the UK for example ...

 

I imagine that a lot of people are wondering how Madoff can still be holding on to his flat in New York, reputedly worth as much as $7 million, when there are probably people who need a mere fraction of that just to live on ... but Madoff stole it from them.

 

Finally for now, you might care to remind yourself of the two basic types of Ponzi scheme I discuss on my web site: http://www.duncanwil.co.uk/ponzi.html Give me time to get back home and put together a summary of what people think they know about Madoff and I will include that on a revised or supplementary Ponzi page.

 

 

DW

 

The Dutch Cap?

Interesting what you can learn and I wonder if this is something that everyone else knew about except me.

 

In my course in Bangkok this week, discussing International Financial Reporting Standards, we talked informally at one stage about the credit crunch, 100% - 125% mortgages and remortgaging.

 

There was a Dutchman on the course and he said that in Holland, anyone taking equity out of their property as a result, for example, of a remortgage and who did NOT put that money back into the property in the form of an extension, new kitchen, new garage, upgrading central heating and so on, would be charged income tax on the money as if it were income and not a capital flow of cash.

 

I wonder why we don’t do that in the UK as I think we don’t; and how effective it is at limiting/controlling equity release schemes. I also wonder if it made matters worse by encouraging borrowers to gross up their requirements so that they effectively borrowed enough for their needs and to pay the tax as well. That is, they want, say, £50,000 but take £60,000 to cover their £50,000 AND the £10,000 tax bill.

 

 

DW

 

Thatcher, the daughter

Good! She's been sacked. Good. She's bleating now, or at least there is bleating in the newspapers on her behalf.

Loud, grating and with a speech impediment, Carol Thatcher gets on my nerves. Whenever she was due to appear on the One Show on BBC1 I changed channels. The same when the likes of Graham Norton appear too.

Would Thatcher be where she is without being her mother's daughter? Doubt it. So, as Harold Wilson would have it, ditch the bitch!!

Good riddance.

DW


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CB/BBC

Panorama on BBC 1 did a programme last week on swearing on the telly etc. I said, good. I said, I doubt anything will change as a result of it.

Well, I have had a good idea for change. I would like the BBC and probably ITV and Sky as well, to set up some new channel:s:

CB/BBC which is Cor Blimey BBC
CB/ITV which is Cor Blimey ITV
CB/Sky ... Cor Blimey Sky

They can put all of their swearing programmes on there, their nonsense "celebrity" programmes and their idiotic "reality" stuff. If people want to speak AmerEnglish they can go there too.

As for BBC 1, BBC 2 etc, they will then be free of low level standards. I don't mean that we need posh TV or anything like that, I mean i want entertainment, news and so on without worrying about anyone effing and blinding at me and expecting me to swoon over stunted gays and other ne'er do wells who exhibit neither talent nor charm.

Radio 4 is also in need of reform as we are now subjected to gratuitous swearing on there at virtually any time of the day or night. I don't want it and their infantile justification of it.

There: another top solution from yours truly.

DW


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Right to Die

There is that poor lady who has been kept in a persistent vegetative state for 17 years. It's been decided to the lady die.

Out of the woodwork people arrive to try to stop the process.

The point is, without artificial intervention there is no life. And the lady has been brain dead for 17 years so what is there to communicate with and to feel with?

Of course, someone with courage should have taken this decision 17 years ago.

DW


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Understanding the Current Credit Crisis

If you want to get some kind of understanding of the current credit crisis, you need to read this article from The Economist of this week.

When a Flow Becomes a Flood http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12972083

The eye opener for me was this graphic: I have to confess that I knew a lot that goes behind that graphic but I didn't have the vision that this simple chart gives. http://www.economist.com/images/20090124/CBB721.gif Turn to the final page of any edition of The Economist and you will see a table Trade, exchange rates, budget balances and interest rates. In that table you will confirm what that graphic says and in the 24th - 30th January 2009 edition, the US Current Account Balance for the latest 12 months is $697.9 BILLION. Fear not, Britain' got the third biggest negative current account balance, albeit at a mere $45.6 BILLION after Spain's $164.1 BILLION.

You will also see quite a bit about the financial side of the developing world and how they have been financing some of the developed world.

The question still remains, however, where on earth has the US put this money? Is it in a depository in the Gulf Of Mexico along with its Oil store? Astonishing!

DW

Dorian Gray, is it me? No!

A client has described me in their marketing literature as a veteran.

Walking down a hospital corridor with niece Jemma the other day someone joyously identified me as Jemma's dad! I said to Jemma here's me thinking I look suave and young ... No offence.

Age, the unyielding parameter.

DW


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Duncan Williamson is a genius and you'd be silly not to get him to work for you. For money. For lots of it, preferably.

Windows Explorer: get a grip!

I am working hard at producing a really high quality learn all and do all type of book for Excel 2007. As part of my work I want to trawl through all of my files and folders to see what I have already done or what might be useful to include and so on.

 

So I went to Windows Explorer* to search folder and files and found that a lot of files were listed but that couldn’t open a preview image and couldn’t open the file. No error message, no warnings given ... just nothing.

 

I repeated that this morning only to find that I was still getting apparently useful materials that I couldn’t access. I dug a bit deeper this time and found that WE was still “finding” folders and files that I had deleted MONTHS if not a year or so ago.

 

No wonder more and more people are desperately trying to find alternatives to Microsoft and its woeful products.

 

I am not sure what version of WE I am using but it searches based on an index of my HDD it has prepared. Clearly, once something gets into the index* , it can never get out.

 

DW

 

Hartlepool Monkey

Just been listening to an interview on the Today programme with the Mayor of Hartlepool. This chap used to be the mascot of Hartlepool FC.

The mascot of HFC is a monkey. The name they gave the monkey?

Hangus ... Now that's funny!!

DW


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Super Burnley From the North

I was one of around 16,000 men, women and children who went to Turf Moor in Burnley last night and had a whale of a time: Burnley supporters. There seemed to be around 3,000 Tottenham Hotspur fans too.

We watched rank outsiders Burnley take on the mighty Tottenham Hotspur of London. Carling Cup semi final game, second leg. Burnley were behind 4:1 from the first leg and they needed to win 3:0 to be in with a shout of qualifying for the final.

Spurs were 100 - 1 ON to win the tie.

A hopeless task!

I said to a few people before the game, Burnley are playing very well at the moment. Spurs are playing badly. Even though Spurs is a Premiership team and Burnley a Championship team, I believed with the wind at their backs Burnley could win.

Playing conditions were atrocious: gusting wind, lashing rain, air temperature of around 4 degrees Celsius.

The game got under way and son Andrew and I had seats near the pitch towards the Sammy McIlroy Stand end. A good view. Spurs were not so mighty and Burnley got stronger and stronger as the game went on. The Spurs fans were in good voice and cocky.

Burnley scored: a cracking free kick that their goalie should have stopped. Half time came, we went inside for a warm and everyone was reasonably happy.

Well into the second half and Burnley scored again, Spurs continued to struggle and their fans went more or less quiet. We were more than content. The second substitution for Burnley saw teenager Jay Rodriguez, local Burnley lad, take the field and within a few minutes he'd scored Burnley's third goal. The goal that the bookies had said could not exist! The Spurs fans never uttered another word for a long time.

We were more than happy. Burnley were playing really well and the massively expensive and ostensibly talented Spurs were just ordinary.

Andrew had to leave to get his bus back to Salford: poor lad; but he saw all three goals! Full time came and extra time beckoned, a further 30 minutes of play.

In the interval between full time and extra time, one of the wittiest/funniest chants I have heard in a while emanated from Burnley throats: 4:1 and you f*cked it up, 4:1 and you f*cked it up, 4:1 and you f*cked it up ...

Extra time began with the crowd expectant. Eagles, Burnley winger, was suffering, his legs had gone but the crowd cheered him on to try to encourage him. He tried!

Burnley held their own in the first half of extra time. No doubt. The impossible was still within their grasp. Andrew came back: he missed his bus by two minutes! Lucky him and where else on earth would he rather be?!

After about five minutes into the final 15 minutes, I got the impression that Spurs were pushing Burnley back. Then they definitely were. Sad to say, as I was about to tell Andrew that Spurs were pushing Burnley back but were ineffective, they scored ... 3:1 on the night and just two and a half minutes left. Gutted. Then within another minute, another Spurs goal, 3:2 on the night and 6:4 on aggregate.

The Spurs fans came alive and the Burnley fans went quiet. Game over. Sorry sight. Sad faces.

Along the way, Burnley had beaten Fulham, Arsenal and Chelsea ... Premiership teams all; and they had throttled Spurs almost to death. Burnley single handedly humbled the Premiership in this Carling Cup competition this season.

Massive respect Burnley.

Andrew came home with me and we got here at around 23:00 - 23:15 hours or so and immediately made a chocolate milk drink and sat down to watch the match again ... cleverly I had recorded it! Watched the first half before bed and was pleased.

Andrew slept in as I watched the rest of the match on Thursday morning and was very pleased with that I saw, on average.

Spurs scored two good goals but only on the back of the Burnley players having more weary legs than the younger Spurs team. Give no credit to Spurs, they don't deserve it.

On Saturday Burnley take on West Bromwich Albion of the Premiership in the FA Cup! Watch out you Baggies!!!!

DW

Dreadful Service ... Again

On 8th January (two weeks ago) I ordered some computer parts, paid for them and dutifully waited for them to arrive. I have to confess that I meant to pay for express delivery but forgot. No matter, this is an award winning company and they often surprise with the speed of their delivery. I was not unhappy.

A week went by and then I began to consider that I might be waiting too long. So I went online and checked my account with this company and saw my order. In the despatch column it said queued so I decided to call the company to ask what was happening. This company has a good reputation so I happily left a voicemail message when I got through to a robot who told me that all their agents were all busy ...

A couple of days went by but I heard nothing from the company so I sent customer services an email asking for an update. I never got a reply and waited another couple of days when I called again and got the same robot so I left another message and said if I heard nothing within 24 hours I would have to cancel my order. As it happened I waited 48 hours before I acted again.

This time I called their Sales department thinking that I might get through much quicker to them and could ask them to treat me as an exception. I got the robot again but left a message saying that I will wait till close of business that day, after which time I'd cancel my order. Nothing.

I really wanted this company to have my business and they had taken the money from my credit card on 8th January, two weeks ago. I now decided to call again but this time to wait for as long as it took to get an answer from a real person. I waited and waited and waited, 25 minutes in total and got no reply.

I couldn't wait any more so this time I went back to the company's web site and sent an explanatory email to every email address I could find for the company: 10 or 12 of them.

My 1700 hours deadline came with no response from the company so I called my credit card company and asked them to cancel that payment. They told me what they would do ... job done.

I was disappointed because I have dealt with that company before and not been disappointed. They do provide a good product and service but they let me down and there was no way I could solve this problem. Son Andrew suggested I go to their sales outlet but that would have cost me a whole day of a trip ... time I cannot afford to waste as I need to make good progress with my new book.

I wondered, however, how is it that a random distribution of phone calls to this company never actually got me connected to a real live person AND they never responded to any voicemail or email message.

Lo and behold at 1730 or so, I received a phone call from the company who said they had received my email that afternoon ... they were very busy ... couldn't understand why no one had responded to my voicemails and emails. He then assured me that my order had now been despatched and would be with me tomorrow.

I replied that it was too late because I had called my credit card company and cancelled the payment. He asked me if he should recall the order then and I replied, "You can do what you like". He said OK and we said goodbye.

What should happen now? I think the company will do nothing else. I would like an apology from them: a simple email or phone call to apologise for wasting my time and energy. After all, I have now lost an opportunity to do what I wanted to do and may have no time to finish it before I go off to  my next assignment. Moreover, it took me a long time to sort out what I wanted to do and to place the order.

More Great British service. In a recession, too, when everyone needs all the business they can get ... don't they?

DW

Avoidance

I am avoiding the television and radio today for fear of having THAT ceremony in Washington DC thrust at me. It has nothing to do with me, I think it is racist to keep going on about his African roots and the man spent two years and $1.6 BILLION on himself to ensure he got the job.

Eeugh! No thanks.

I willl be listening to the Archers and watching the football and that's it. Come on Derby!!

DW


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How to Write a Request ... NOT

Everyone here knows that if they write to me with a request for help and/or information, I will help if I can. I certainly try to ensure that I reply and explain if I can't help.

Yesterday, I received this message:

hi,

I need the model answers for AQA GCE Report on the examination, january 2006 business nad management (P&O)

THANK YOU

That's it, no how do you do or yours sincerely ...

This morning I did something I have never done before, by replying as follows:

Well, thank you for sharing that with me!

Usually in such cases I reply properly and ask them to introduce themselves and usually they do!

DW

Political Stupidity

I can't help making a few political comments although this is a personal/business blog.

This week we had some stupendous nonsense when Lady Vadera suggested that she thought that things might not be as bad with the Economy as the rest of us seem to think.

Apparently she needed to apologise for saying that because it was an insensitive thing to say. Apparently she is not allowed even to think what she said.

My questions:

Democracy and free speech?
Why suddenly do we now learn that Vadera is very powerful and Mr Brown needs to be careful?
Why tell us that years ago Vadera met Tory Sarah Hogg with a view to working with her but didn't?

The stupid tree dwellers are back!

Speaking of stupid, I see William Hague is moving back up the Tory Party. Clever and focused, the foetus as he is known, Hague utters more crass nonsense even than George Osborne and David Cameron combined.

Now Heathrow! So there will be a third runway and a sixth terminal at LHR. I hear everyone ranting at the environmental aspects of this project. All badly informed comment I think.

Today on Radio 4 had a clever aviation chappie on the programme yesterday who pointed out that fuel consumption in aviation has been falling at 2% a year for many years already, carbon fibre bodies are coming in that will save a lot more and new engine types are becoming available that will save a further 10%.

Even the uselessly combative interviewer John Humphrys was flattened by this news and meekly moved on.

It's fine to be green but it's better to be properly informed. I am making NO judgement on the merits of the LHR project here, by the way.

DW
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I Didn't Forget

It came around to 12th January again and my thoughts turned to John Sutcliffe.

John was my best friend from the age of 3 or 4 and throughout my early childhood. 12th is John's birthday. Tragically, though, John died in a motor bike accident a couple of years ago.

RIP John and at least you now know the answer to the greatest question of all!

DW


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Increasing by one every day ... whatever can it be?

A while ago I bought a new radio phone for home and gave my old one to my next door neighbour. It meant I could call him and he could tell me where in the house he was at the time ... an unintended consequence!

 

Well, my neighbour’s a nice old man but not that tech savvy so every now and again he asks me to look at the phone to sort out a problem for him.

 

The other day he brought one of the handsets together with the user’s manual and asked if I could sort out a problem he just couldn’t fathom.

 

He showed me the display and said, See that number? I just can’t get rid of it. And every day it increases by one.

 

I said, That’s the date, M: it’s meant to be like that!

 

My neighbour said, Well I never ...

 

Nice story I think!!

 

DW

Bull in a China Shop? Peace, man!

I read a report of an experiment recently where they put a real bull in a real china shop.

What they found was that the bull carefully AVOIDED all shelving and china. VERY little damage done.

So they put another bull in the shop and together they both tried to avoid the china and shelving. Again, VERY little damage done.

Finally, they put a third bull in the shop and, in perfect harmony with diseconomies of scale, only now was there any damage as the bulls needed to avoid each other as much as the china and shelving!

This was on Mythbusters! So where did the bull in a china shop scare story come from I wonder?

DW

MPs … whatever happened laddie?

As I travel around and read newspapers from a variety of different countries, I notice the way that people behave, how journalists report things and so on. When I visit a new country or go back to a country for the first time in over a year or so I bring home with me a new copy of a local, usually national, newspaper. Just for interest.

Anyway, you have probably started noticing that there are no Members of Parliament any more or Senators or whatever you USED to call them. For some reason, the 12 year old journalists who inhabit our television news rooms and newspaper news rooms and so on have decided that an MP is now a law maker.

Of course, when I feel the need to discuss the goings on in a parliament or other house of government, I shall continue to refer to MPs, Senators and so on. The fact that they make laws is taken for granted but it is only one part of their jobs.

DW

Home Networking

I know I have not been alone in my quest to have my various computers at home talking to each other but eventually I got some help from a couple of decent chappies on the internet and now, I have just got my desktop and my main laptop talking to each other.

The solution was simple but I have been aghast at how counter intuitive it was for my Vista and XP computers to remain so stubbornly opposed to talking to each other until now.

The network is working across my wireless network so the cross over cable I bought in the middle of last year is, I am happy to say, redundant. It cost very little and I am sure that one day I will use it or donate it to someone who can use it.

For all of the wasted time and lack of networking opportunities Bill Gates III, thanks for nothing. For all of the people on the internet who swell Microsoft’s coffers every day against their better judgement, but who are actually saving Gates’ @rse, I say a big and genuine thank you.

DW

Please Explain

Louis Vuitton bags the colour of poo! Can someone please explain to me the attraction of a poo brown bag?

Moreover, very expensive.

Moreover, as the LV logo is plastered all over the bags, the owner of the bag pays a premium to advertise the company making the bags when it should be contrariwise, in my opinion.

DW


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Bambi NOT on ICE

You know that tall and gangly sports people are often described as being like Bambi on ice. Well, where do you think that Bambi is no longer on ICE?

ICE refers to Emirates Airlines' in flight system:

Information
Communication
Entertainment

Since Bambi is no longer shown on the ICE system it is not possible watch Disney's cartoon Bambi on Emirates now.

Poo!

DW


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The BBC Hitting Rock Bottom?

So, a Premiership footballer has been charged with assault and affray following an alleged assault in a bar. Nothing new there and not only football players can do that!

Now then, does anyone consider that a footballer potentially disgracing himself is worthy of being the second leading story on BBC News: Radio 4 news from 6 am today?

This man plays football for a living: why does that make this story of national import? I don't care who the footballer is, why is such a minor offence being made out to be a national importance?

Moreover, in my daily BBC email I see that this assault and affray is shown both under news and football. Is this really a football story? I don't think so!

DW

BBC News Falls Down the Stupid Tree ... Again

• Here we are again, happy as can be
• Listening to lots of hogwash from the BBC

They've said it before and they say it again: the number of suicides in the USA following the 1929 Wall Street Crash was exceptional. I read part of a book by JK Galbraith recently and he had a chapter on this topic. Let Galbraith tell the story:

In his classic examination of the 1929 Wall Street crash John Galbraith disabuses us of a widely held notion:

In the week or so following Black Thursday, the London penny press told delightedly of the scenes in downtown New York. Speculators were hurling themselves from windows; pedestrians picked their ways delicately between the bodies of fallen financiers.

In the United States the suicide wave that followed the stock market crash is part of the legend of 1929. In fact there was none. For several years before 1929 the suicide rate had been gradually rising. It continued to increase in that year, with a further and much sharper increase in 1930, 1931 and 1932 – years when there were many things besides the stock market to cause people to conclude that life was no longer worth living (chapter 8).

Galbraith goes on to say that in the two months following the crash the number of suicides in New York were actually comparatively low. There were in fact only two suicides on Wall Street ...

http://frontierpsychiatrist.co.uk/category/suicide/

Wall Street Crash 1929

That rather gay Aussie, Aaron, who works on the business news at BBC World yesterday compared the current global economic downturn to the 1929 crash. Completely off his trolley but he was allowed to say that without being challenged. It is well known by even the most amateur of economists that there is no effective comparison to be made between 1929 and now. It's more BBC driven hogwash but it didn't stop them showing a few news reel clips from 1929 on yet another programme today. In that programme, as a matter of interest, there was an "expert" who had learned to say that today's situation is unique. That's all, he had nothing else to say. I hope they didn't pay him for that. That was in a review programme in which three "experts" were brought in to discuss this year's financial crisis. Extremely low level, all three trying desperately not to offend each other. One of them was wearing the most ridiculous socksI've seen in quite a while: at least they matched his shirt!

Lame Duck President?

By the way, when and where did you first hear George W Bush denounced as a lame duck president? You know the story, someone thinks it's smart that they can say on the radio or television that a US President who is about to leave office must be incapable of taking decisions ... What do you think? November, October, September? How about February of this year? Some young girl of a reporter included that sentiment in a report she had put together. My guess is that there was a lottery syndicate in the newsroom: who can work in this lame duck president angle first.

DW

Merry Christmas One and All!

Christmas comes but once a year. Innit.

So, happy Christmas to all of my many readers. Hope you enjoy the next few days with those you love, doing what you want and enjoy.

And other heart felt and sloppy sentiments.

Don't worry about me though, working over the holiday. All alone. In a hotel room. By myself. In a foreign country.

Take a look at my web site's home page, by the way: revamped! Let me know your thoughts.

All the best one and all.

DW

Senior Citizen

I have impudently been asked by my barber if I am a pensioner since he gives discounts for senior citizens. I tell him to ask again in 10 years.

On Sunday, however, I was given a discount of 3 Ringgit at the Manara Tower in Kuala Lumpur on account of my age! She started by asking how old I was as I asked for a ticket to go up the tower and when I said 21 she looked completely flummoxed ... as if I hadn't understood the question.The innocence of it all!

Makes me realise that it won't be long before I am announcing to the world that "I'm 83 you know!"

It's a 33 degree very sunny scorcher today, since you ask!

DW

Free Entertainment Needed? Sit near the hat rack

Want some free but rich entertainment? Then sit yourself near the novelty hat rack in a Christmas market. You will have endless fun as old and young, male and female, couples and singles try them on.

The best sport is to be had by those who insist on having their photos taken in the hats. The more ridiculous hat the more they like it. V signs, forced smiles and endless patience all displayed.

Another mega top tip!!

DW
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... as others see us

Of course, the UK is seen around the world in any light you care to name, from fantastic to an utter waste of space.

Just watching the news on Channel NewsAsia and there were two reports on the UK:

• crapwrap
• cheese rolling

Crapwrap

In London you can pay to have someone wrap your Christmas presents so badly that your recipients will be convinced that you must have done it yourself. Apparently, as many people at one shop opted for this service as opted to have their gifts wrapped properly

Cheese Rolling

They showed several adventurous men (didn't see any women) hurtling down a very steep hill in Leicestershire (? sorry, but didn't catch the name of the village) after ... a cheese. It's a 30 year old tradition in which someone throws a round cheese so that it rolls at speed down the hill and the competitors have to chase and catch it. Good news? Not so many people had to go to hospital this time: only 19 this year, including the winner!

Madness but it's better than all that serious stuff we see in which politicians and the like illustrate how far and how quickly they are falling down and out of their stupid trees.

DW

Taxi Sir?

This happened in the street as I wandered back to the hotel:

Driver: Taxi sir?

Me: No thank you.

Driver: (without hesitation of so much as a nanosecond) Do you want a nice lady?

Me: (Sorry but I burst out laughing!!)


DW



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Is it a Barrage Balloon or just a Balloon?

It's shocking and I'm going to be sizist and sexist now.

Sitting in the departure lounge at Doha Airport, Qatar and there are many nicely slim Asian and Middle Eastern women walking around.

Then there are many, many British woman the size of barrage balloons wobbling around. What are they thinking?

• They are not healthy
• They are not attractive
• They are not cool

They are usually badly dressed too.

Then there is about one in three of these women sporting a tattoo. egads, it just gets worse.

At least they don't have the opportunity to go on a binge drinking episode while they are here do they?

This is another official rant!

DW

Pony Tails on Men

Well, hardly men are they!

I feel wretched every time I see a man sporting a pony tail. Especially sad, old and middle aged men who have either missed some boat or other or who think they are being dreamily cool.

My theory is that these pony tails pull the hair so tight against the head that it looks from the front as if the wearer has a short back and sides hair cut ... which is the hair style they REALLY want but are too stupid to admit.

That's an official rant.

DW

Are you sure?

Just read this on a news wire:

... say they have unearthed vials of perfume similar to those that may have been used by ...

Well, were they or weren't there, did she or didn't she?

DW

Long Legs: top travel tip

If you are tall and go somewhere where the population is much shorter, on average, be sure to take care when sitting down to eat in a restaurant. You WILL crack your knees if you don't.

You don't get top tips like that on those "Wow look where I am and you're not" travel programmes.

DW
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Jobs Like THAT!

You know the jobs I mean: someone calls or write or sends a text message asking you to do something really simple.

You accept the piffling challenge with a waft of your hand and a, "Don't worry! Consider it done"!

I just accepted a job like that: while you're there, can you buy me a mini Santa Claus ... I collect them from all over the world.

I set off. Hmm! This is work for a woman, I quickly decided. I then realised that while Singapore fully embraces the spirit of Xmas it does so simply by erecting Xmas Trees and draping tinsel everywhere. I found that the deep and detailed Xmas isn't here, in the shops, I mean.

That's not to say that is a bad thing, it's just the way Changi Airport is.

Well, I went into one shop and asked an assistant whether they had any toy SCs. Go to Terminal 3 she suggested. I boarded the Skytrain and got to T3. The Toy Shop is right next to the train. I found Xmas type bears and dogs and red noseless Rudolph. Oh, poo! I carried on and failed.

My eyes lit up at the sight of SC lying on top of some cotton wool in a display cabinet in an electronics shop. I asked how much they wanted for it. Not for sale she said. S$10, I offered. Again, I met a refusal.

I wandered off and even went into the Ferrari shop where there was a pukka Rudolph. Much too big and £40 to boot! I declined their kindly offer.

In the end I resigned myself to having failed and having to resort to buying Rudolph the Not Red Nosed Reindeer and returned to the toy shop, crestfallen. A job like THAT had done me in.

I plonked Rufolph on the counter but asked they had any toy SCs. She pointed at the perfect thing: the last one in the shop, suspended from a stand.

It's perfect, I said. She couldn't follow my excitement or my wittering on about it being the only one in the airport: T1 and T3 anyway.

So I bought my little SC for my friend and was content that I must have done something good today to deserve such an outcome.

DW.
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Milky Tea

I never, NEVER, have milk in my tea so why on earth am I staring at some ghastly looking milky tea that I just bought for myself?

What was I thinking?

DW

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In Common

Question: What do the UK, Singapore and Vietnam all have in common?

Answer: Slade ... So here it is merry Christmas, everybody's having fun ...

That song's played everywhere!!!

DW
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Lose $11 billion and still earn a bonus? No, thank goodness

The story is that those awfully incompetent people at Merrill Lynch have lost a total of $11 billion in the latest financial year. Never mind that the Bank of America that bought out Merrill has been provided with $25 billion in State aid.

Those awfully incompetent people have been reported as considering the payment of a BONUS of £10 million to the CEO of Merrill for performance and retention.

Erm, what performance? You lose $11 billion and that's so good that you deserve $10 million for yourself?

Retain who? Someone who lords it over such ineptitude?

Luckily, the Attorney General of the State of New York agrees that no one in such a position deserves a bonus let alone one of $10 million. So the Attorney General wrote to the Board of Merrill and said so. Read the letter here, it's great!http://www.oag.state.ny.us/media_center/2008/dec/Merrill%20Lynch.pdf

At last and well done that Attorney General!

DW

Motorbikes in Ho Chi Minh City

After an early evening snack and cup of coffee I looked out over the city from the balcony of the lounge near the top of the New World Hotel Saigon and was smitten by the number of motorbikes careening around the city. Come here and take a look as I did and you will see why I use the word careening!

I was so smitten that I immediately went down to the nearest road junction to capture what I saw. Here is just a couple of examples of what I snapped.

It was dark and I was in a hurry and even though I was there for just 10 minutes or so I think I must have seen 500 - 600 motorbikes going past me.

Fascinating!

DW

Katherine Jenkins

I recently heard that Katherine Jenkins is Britain's favourite opera singer or some such. Of course, that was on BBC early evening television and it is such arrant nonsense. However, that's not to say the lady is without talent. On the other hand, yesterday I read this in Krisworld, the in flight magazine of Singapore Airlines, December 2008 edition. The brief report on Jenkins was positive but should the editor have let this final sentence appear?

"This Welsh warbler is only just beginning"

DW

Snaps but I Need a Tripod With me

Here are a couple of snaps of Singapore and as always I find two problems:

• I always seem to hold the camera around 2 - 3 degrees off the horizontal (not important for what you see here, however!)
• I need to carry my tripod with me but never do

The first two photos are of the Fountain of Wealth just outside Suntec City Hall: normal and then on the move. The third photo is of a Christmas wreath taken on the move ... I really like the effect of the latter two photos!

DW

Sweat Bags

I took a 6 kilometre walk around Singapore yesterday and was lathered even though I took my time.

On Sunday, 7th December, they are holding the Singapore Marathon. I can't imagine the fluid intake to be needed to stave off dehydration.

DW


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Roy Keane and Sunderland AFC

They've done it again: Sunderland AFC. I've got loads of time for Niall Quinn and Roy Keane so what's gone wrong at the Stadion Lux?

Looks like the players don't like being disciplined and managed by someone good.

Doubtless there are some of the clueless band of supporters who think it's good that he's gone.

I predicted a high top half of the table position for Sunderland for the end of this season. That is what player and supporter irresponsibility are losing. He's in the mould of Martin O'Neill in my opinion.

I hope Keane finds a club to respect him now. He'll probably have to go down a division or two again to get a club to appreciate him.

If Sam Allardyce gets the job then I'll be happy with that. Another top chap, Sam. I have admired him since his days as a player at Roker park. Good, honest, solid performer.

Sunderland 0 v Roy Keane 1

Clowns

DW
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That Thorny Rose Again

I did some online shopping for Xmas for the family yesterday and today. Generally a fairly positive experience.

Which shop and Knight of the Realm turned it sour though? Surprise, surprise it was Stuart Rose's M&S. Refusing to cope with a German address to start with, goods out of stock but still put in the basket, prices increased on items already in the basket, items put on HOLD but not stating until when.

In the end Thorny, I was left with just three items out of about 12. I cleared my basket and left.

No wonder you're desperate for power as you drive the share price right down.

DW
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From God!

Just had a gradely dinner at Marina Square and have just seen a young man wearing a tee shirt. Black shirt done up to look like a beribboned gift.

The "tag" says:

To: Women
From: God

No offence!

DW


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Music and Rain

At breakfast this morning as the outside temperature had already reached the mid 20s, the background music was:

Let it snow
Let it snow
Let it snow

Did some work this morning and just as I'd finished getting ready to go out, down came an intense tropical rain shower!! :-}

DW
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BBC Reporting from India

What are these people trying to say?

Most reports from Mumbai at the moment are trying to analyse the recent terrorist outrage there. Then they talk about the relationships between India and Pakistan because of the suggestion of the links between the terrorists and Pakistan.

However, they say, "... Relationships between NUCLEAR ARMED Pakistan and India ..." Yesterday a reporter said something like, "... the twin nuclear armed countries, India and Pakistan ..."

What on earth are these people saying and suggesting? Where are the editors? Why are these fly in, fly out reporters given the freedom to say such stupid things in the name of news?

No doubt John Simpson will be waddling through the situation with his own brand of analysis soon. He is the BBC's WORLD editor, after all!!

DW


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Well done Burnley

Burnley just beat Arsenal in what sounds like a brilliant game. 2: 0 in the League Cup.

Haven't seen any of the game but should see highlights this evening.

Well done lads!

Have exchanged around two dozen text messages on the subject so far!!!

DW
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Worn out!

I have finished my very intensive course in Singapore and I am worn out! Slept well on night of arrival but badly last night.

Need an early night and a lie in to recover. Am not working tomorrow so that should help too.

DW



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Bangkok or Bust? Bust!

Because of those anti democratic "pro democrats" laying seige to Bangkok's International Airport, I have had a job postponed and am being forced to hang around in Singapore until I can go to my next job.

Let's define democracy again then!!!

DW


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