Terminal 5

Okay, so Mrs S-E and I have survived our first trip through the 'largest free standing building in Europe'.  More impressively, our luggage made it through as well.

So good things - the overall place seems well designed and the BA lounge is nice (although the music is too loud).

Bad things - the bookshops - there is a small Smiths and a couple of the Irish chain "Hughes and Hughes".  They are too small and the selection is uniformly terrible - absolutely useless. Stanstead is much better served, for example, with its larger Smiths and a Borders land-side and air-side.

Random News

The good, the bad and the ugly.

Oh, and the 'no surprises there, then' and the downright wierd.

Two snippets

Ashley Dupré - cute but not that^* cute:


Actually, I think Mrs Spitzer is hardly a moose:




German Army training doesn't quite get the point:

The hoods were briefly removed and the recruits had to lie down with a sergeant on their backs while a waterpipe was stuffed into their noses.

During a second exercise the recruits were sprayed with water as they stood with electrical cables from a field telephone attached to their necks, thighs and calves.

Now, we all know that going to war on the same side as the Americans may lead to 'friendly fire' but, really, it is unlikely to lead to 'friendly waterboarding'.

* $5k per hour, or whatever is being reported now.

Double Take

My insufficiently caffeinated brain was reading somebody else's Metro on the Tube this morning and I thought "What? Is he out of hospital already?"

Then I realised - it wasn't "Gazza fighting stops" but "Gaza".

Oh well.

A Couple of Updates

With regard to the "George Medal" post below, I think it also deserves pointing out that St Andrew is hardly quintessentially Scottish.  As a Patron Saint, we share him with Russia, Romania and Greece, as well as Byzantium / Constantinople / Istanbul¹ - places where, unlike Scotland, he may have actually had an evangelical connection. Whether as a Jewish fisherman in Roman-occupied Galilee or as the First Apostle, his connection with our lovely country is, at best, post mortem² and, as it seems to be based on the dubious authenticity of medieval church relics, probably entirely hypothetical. 

Also, Mrs S-E wishes her loyal public to note that she has decreed that from times henceforth, minature bottles of alcohol, those being 5cl of spirits, 18.75cl of wine or 20cl of champagne^3,4, shall be known as "sheridans", in honour of Gail of that name.

1. And Prussia, keeping my prior habit of citing regions.

2. Although the myths of St Andrew indicate he is supposed to have preached in Scythia and the Declaration of Arbroath does claim the Scots came via "Greater Scythia", so he might just have run across us.

3. Although anybody approaching her presence with champagne in volume less than a normal bottle^* will be hung, drawn and quartered, just to make the point.

4. Or similar sizes. She's not a Eurocrat.

* And to be full (at least until you pour her glass), and to be left in an appropriate cooling bucket within easy reach. Thank you.

Divided By A Common Tongue

Why does the civilised world

Stand for election,

Yet the "Land of the Free"

Run for Office?

I know that, in both cases "Pimp^* for votes" would be more honest.

* Yes, 'pimp', rather than 'prostitute'. If it was their own money they were promising to spend rather than your taxes, they might raise themselves to the dignity of a harlot.

Looking forward to 2008

Well, what about a bit of a wish list for 2008. Real stuff, so no lottery wins or world peace (or, for that matter, merely peace in Iraq and Afghanistan). What do I think?

• Clearly, Mrs S-E's business taking off would yank quite a bit of stress off me ...
• A new job - or, at least, decent work (and pay) from the current one.
• Prosecutions in all (I'll settle for any) of the current political contributions scandals.
• Boris Johnson wins the election as London Mayor. Ideally, but unlikely, Brian Paddick beats Ken in to 3rd place.
• The "megamosque" proposal is binned, never to rise again.
  

And the unlikely stuff:

• A vote of no confidence in Gordon Brown and a snap election with a Tory win
  
• Des Browne is cut in half and preserved by Damien Hirst. One to be displayed in the Madhouse, the other at Dover House.

Again, I will add to this as things occur to me.

Looking back to 2007

Well, yet another year went by. What to remember? Good or bad. Here's a few things that stand out for me, anyway (in no particular order, significance or otherwise):

• A new job to start the year. Got away from hideous ISO27001 policy work to, ahh, hideous Manual of Protective Security (based on BS7799, the predecessor to guess what) policy work.
• Started blogging seriously - starting TerryWatch certainly counts as my "Public Service" event of the year (shared with RFS).
• Both trips to that incessantly pronounced "ghastly defeat for the British military" in Basrah. The first for how much time was spent under cover from mortar and rocket attack, the second for how (comparatively) little.
• We got rid of Blair, Prescott and Reid. Unfortunately, that left us with Brown(e), Smith (J) and Darling so a no-score draw at best.
• The SNP victories in the Scottish and local elections. However much I disagree with their core policy, the rotten hereditary fiefdoms of Jockanese Labour need to be crushed and, much as I would love the Tories to be able to do it, they can't. So that means SNP victories and, as a special "Brucie-bonus", pissing Terry off.
• Working with Dan Hardie and others on the campaign for just treatment for the Iraqis employed by the British government.
• Struggling to get Mrs S-E's website to function under Internet Explorer :(
  

I will probably add to this as I go through the day.

A Blast from My Past

Helping Mrs S-E clear up our shared office space, I came across this little ditty from my ancient (so ancient it has been run off on a Gestetner machine - remember them?) past:

In the beginning was the Plan. And with the Plan, at the start of all, were the Assumptions.

And the Assumptions were without form and the Plan was completely without substance.

And the darkness was on the face of the workers and they spoke unto the Heads of their Departments saying "It is a crock of shit and it sinketh unto the very heavens!"

And the Heads of Department went unto the Area Manager and sayeth thus: "It is a pail of dung and none may abide the odour thereof."

And the Area Manager went unto the Divisional Director and sayeth unto him "It is a container of excrement and it is very strong, so strong such that that none here may abide by it."

And the Divisional Director went unto the Employee Relations Manager and said unto her, "The voices of the workers have spoken and they say that the Plan is a vessel of fertilizer and none may abide its strength."

And the Employee Relations Manager went most speedily unto the Human Resources Director and sayeth, "It contains that which aideth plant growth and it is mightily strong."

And the Human Resources Director crept on his belly to the Managing Director, for such is the way of the servants of HR, and said thusly: "It promoteth growth and it is very powerful."

And the Managing Director did meet with the Board, upon the very heights of heaven, and the minutes were engraven on tablets of the whitest marble and the record did show that he spake thusly: "This powerful new Plan will actively promote the growth and efficiency of the division and of this area in particular."

And the Board did gaze upon the vastness of the Plan and ignoreth all of the Assumptions. And they believed that the Plan was good and so the Plan became Policy.

And the stench became most mighty and the Assumptions were thrown down. Yet the workers laboured still in the reek, complaining bitterly.

Dolly the Socialist?

I can't be the first to have spotted this remarkable likeness. Enquiring minds want to know just what has Professor Wilmut been up to?

Perhaps it wasn't Dolly's shortened life that persuaded him that cloning was not yet safe?

So on our left we have Iain's "lefty blogging twat" and on the right we have Gordon's spineless blogging poodle.

How Can We Make This Work?

From the BBC:

the book was protected by the defence known as Reynolds qualified privilege.

This allows the media to publish information, even if it turned out to be untrue and defamatory, provided the public had the right to know it and it was the product of responsible journalism.

This sounds like a sensible rule and I am sure I could increase my drinking sufficiently to meet the standard British definition of a journalist :)

Courage - a brief thought

I heard Madeline Bunting's "Thought for the Day" on the Today programme this morning and she was talking about the courage being shown by the Burmese protestors and that they will need to continue to show as so many of them are carted of to what I assume will be a harsh and miserable internment (as opposed to imprisonment as I doubt they will see any, never mind a fair, trial).

It got me thinking, which was probably not a good idea while driving and quite so early in the morning, about the difference between 'hot' and 'cool' courage. The former is the heroism of dramatic rescues and military exploits - the sort of efforts that win headlines and medals, the latter (and this is where I see the Burmese mostly fitting) is the much less lauded struggle to stick to your convictions or continue your efforts in continual pain or discomfort, cold and lonely nights, or omnipresent fear.

The sort of courage that, for example, the late Jane Tomlinson demonstrated so utterly.

Hiatus? What Hiatus?

One of the strange things about living near the country's largest bus manufacturer is the double take you do when you see a destination you don't recognise and your pitiful brain has not yet worked out that these are not local buses.

'Tis not a problem with the Hong Kong buses - they are bright gold and the signs are in sinographs. However, Alexanders are filling an order for Bus Atha Cliath (Dublin Buses) and this has caught me out a couple of times recently.

Out of the Mouths of Babes - 2

While I was researching this topic, Master S-E was doing his homework. Ecology Studies (WTF? It's amazing how soon the indoctrination starts) and Maths. Count the electrically powered items in each room in the house and then make a graph.

However, he also had to put them in categories. Lights, computer, heating etc. Out of the mouths of babes ... "In", Mrs S-E asked, "which category would you put a telephone?" Absolutely no hesitation - "entertainment". Comes of having an older sister, I presume. Thank God for zero-tariff phone deals, is all I can say.

Private Ey-What?

A couple of howlers from the latest issue (1192).

Rotten Boroughs:

Despite being Britain's fourth smallest county by area (and 12th smallest county by population) residents pay the UK's third-highest council tax.

Firstly, UK ≠ Britain. Fix it. It's trivial.

Secondly, well, yes. Not that I am equipped to comment on either the efficiency or effectiveness of Bedfordshire County Council (as they are poli-scoundrels, I am entirely prepared to be convinced that they are a bunch of utter wastrel incompetents) but the lack of economies of scale that come with being a small county are, in economics terms (especially if they have to 'compete' with larger neighbouring councils in terms of service provision) likely to raise the individual charge.

Letters:
Please, Rev Allardice: exactly what is an "occupationally contracted disease" for a "retired CofE cleric"? Atheism?

Out of the mouths of babes

Or small boys, anyway. In the modern age.

Mrs S-E and I were having a post-prandial chat, with the last of the bottle, before the washing-up began to beckon too hard. One of our mutual friends has, together with his wife, just adopted. "Send him my regards", she said. "I'll give you his blog address and you can do it yourself", I retorted.

Master S-E, not quite having been banished to the portal of Diss that passes for his bedroom stumps up:

The world's falling to rack and ruin and you two are blogging.

Says it all, really.

A brief musing on bonking

Chris Dillow introduced me to the blog of Norman Geras, from where I found this:

I bring you the High School Prom Theorem:

We suppose that on the day after the prom, each girl is asked to give the number of boys she danced with. These numbers are then added up giving a number G. The same information is then obtained from the boys, giving a number B.

Theorem: G=B

Proof: Both G and B are equal to C, the number of couples who danced together at the prom. Q.E.D.

One of the things it shows is that when, in surveys, men report having many more sexual partners than women, something is amiss.

Interesting, I thought. That doesn't allow for homosexuals or, even, for the annoying (when I was a teenager) tendency for heterosexual girls to dance with each other rather than me or my equally spotty and lecherous mates. So I went to the source article.

There I found one answer in Professor Gale's original posing of the theorem but also several more fundamental errors:

But there is just one problem, mathematicians say. It is logically impossible for heterosexual men to have more partners on average than heterosexual women. Those survey results cannot be correct.

&

“I have heard this question before,” said Cheryl D. Fryar, a health statistician at the National Center for Health Statistics and a lead author of the new federal report, “Drug Use and Sexual Behaviors Reported by Adults: United States, 1999-2002,” which found that men had a median of seven partners and women four.

But when it comes to an explanation, she added, “I have no idea.”

The journalist has mis-represented the Prof and Cheryl, or the journalist, has made the usual mistake of mixing up the different sorts of average: mean, median and mode. Let us take a limiting example.

Take a population of 200, 100 boys and 100 girls, who are all asked the "how many sexual partners" question and all answer it honestly. 2 boys say "none", 98 boys say "3". 98 girls say "1", 2 (very popular) girls say "98". Total number of sexual partners is 294 both ways.

	Definition	Boys	Girls
Mean	Sum of activity divided by number of samples	2.94	2.94
Mode	Most common answer	3	1
Median	Answer half-way through an ordered sample	3	1

And another one for interest - add 2 (faithfully virginal) nuns :

	Definition	Boys	Girls
Mean	Sum of activity divided by number of samples	2.94	2.88
Mode	Most common answer	3	1
Median	Answer half-way through an ordered sample	3	1

So, although the Good Prof is correct and the total must be the same (assuming complete honesty and heterosexuality). However, the mean can be different if the population numbers are not equal - and I believe there are more lasses around than lads? Mode and median can clearly be different between the sexes (and, although I haven't shown it here, different from each other, just trust me :) I believe, from the sociological point, it would be the mode that one would take as showing the characteristic behaviour?

Discuss but let's keep it theoretical. It's been a long week and I apologise for any errors in spelling, logic, statistics or arithmetic :)

Weird Searches and Results

Why would anybody search for this?

bt -bankthai -bluetooth -headset -headsets -ibuprofen -python -tower -bittorrent -radianz -ibuprofen -corn

And why, having done so, would they possibly end up at the (very good, go and read it) Educational Conscription blog?

I know that you are likely to get emergent functionality out of complexity (actually, you are more likely to get something broken but let's just assume it sort of works), so we are not going to actually be able to understand the internet but this seems just to be taking the michael.

"Not in my front square"

Police restrictions on Brian Haw are unlawful, rules the Lord Chief Justice. I do not agree with Mr Haw but that is irrelevant. Our politicians should not be able to abuse anti-terror legislation to silence (or, more sinisterly, remove from earshot) their critics.

As an aside, would you consider Parliament Square in front of or behind the Houses of Parliament? There is no water gate (no, not Watergate Hotel, that is a different bunch of poli-scoundrels), therefore the St Margaret Street side should be the front?

Random Thought from Mrs S-E

A domestic reformulation of Murphy's Law:

A clean kitchen gathers more mess