Britain's Got Talent

I love "Britain's Got Talent". Love it. Nothing on television even gets close to BGT when it comes to showing how little talent we actually have.
Look at tonight's shambles. A crap dance trio, three thousand badly synchronised dancers, a male soprano with genuine talent who completely cocked up his song, a little girl in tears, a superb dancer [who - thank God - won], a juggler who should never have left his back garden, a "singer" and "guitarist" who were, unfortunately, the same person and a latter day family sounds-like-Von-Crap. Oh yes; little girl in tears again. She clinched second place on the pity vote and is going to be popping beta-blockers and Valium^® all night.
There were thousands auditioned and the "judges" (and OMG I use that term loosely apart from the incomparable Simon Cowell) picked out the forty best. Best? Best!
Let's face it. There is very little talent on display in "Britain's Got Talent".
I can't wait for the final.

Lines of Best Fit

When finding a "best fit" straight line I use a cunningly simple method that I have not seen used elsewhere. It gives, to my mind, a better "best fit" than the famous "Least Squares" method that assumes no errors in the independent variable.
My method is this:
Plot all your points, as normal.
Work out the mean x value (x_m) and the mean y value (y_m)
From all your points, work out the standard deviation in the x values (s_x) and the standard deviation in the y values (s_y).
The best "best fit" straight line goes through the points [x_m,y_m] and [x_m+s_x, y_m+s_y]. The gradient of the line is s_y/s_x (but watch for the sign of the gradient).
Easy or what!
Remember where you saw it first.

Symmetry

I recall musing recently on the duplication of snowflakes. Those thoughts have come back to haunt me. Quite clearly, there are huge differences in snowflakes. The bit that has me utterly stumped is why they exhibit six-fold symmetry.
I fully understand how crystals form. A course in crystallography at university took care of that. What I don't understand is how the growing tips of snowflake crystals all know how to be exactly alike. The molecules joining the crystal seem to know exactly where to go and are supported in this, like synchronised swimmers, by five other molecules doing exactly the same thing. That I don't understand or even begin to understand.
It is not like growing salt crystals. Whereas every snowflake is different, every salt crystal is absolutely identical. The only thing different is the size of the crystal. Snow is a completely different deal. So, while each snowflake may be different, I think it should also be true that each "branch" of the snowflake should also be different.
But it isn't!

Have you noticed...

Remember those "threatverts" on the telly?

BENEFIT FRAUD
WE'RE CLOSING IN...

Don't see them that much at the mo.
Wonder why?

A Benchmark for Fraud

There is a lot of hand-wringing about how we will decide who should and shouldn't resign from Parliament. My brother has come up with a startlingly simple method.
Derek Conway (see a few blogs ago) was dumped out of his job for quasi-fraudulently claiming about eight grand, if memory serves me well enough. So all we need do is divide any particular robber-baron MPs fraudulently obtained loot by 8000 to give us their value in "conways".
Any MP with a conway-value of over 1.0 should be sacked (like poor old Derek). Over 2.0 conways, they should be imprisoned. Some of our MPs are rated, by my reckoning, at about 23.7 conways. Off with their bloody heads.
Actually "conways" is rather a bulky unit title. Just like "newtons" becomes N is physics, I would propose that "conways" becomes Con as a benchmark for MP crookedness. So we could say: "anyone under 1.0 Con is probably safe." There. Much neater.
It works on many levels, does "Con".
Even French.

O-Order, O-Order

So.
Mr Speaker resigns.
First time since 1695.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha he he ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha he he ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha he he he ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ho ho ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
He he.

Fattening Pigs

For the n^th time (where n is a large integer) in my 30 years in education I am facing an inspection.
I have box files full of paperwork, meetings to attend, feedback sessions and all the usual pandemonium generated by such events. The cost in man-hours is gigantic. The cost is equally massive in paper.
Now here comes the bit I don't get.
No lessons are being observed.
It is an old aphorism that you can't fatten a pig by weighing it.
Oink!

Poor Old Derek

Is it just me, or is everyone feeling just a bit sorry for Derek Conway?

As I remember it, he was "guilty" of doing far less than, currently, about 600 other MPs. Like them, he was completely "within the rules" and was pilloried and hounded out. I genuinely feel sorry for the bloke. All he was was the first one caught. The sight of him trudging through the rain to get a bollocking from the Chief Whip (Walnut's younger sister) and then off to get his epaulettes ripped off by Cameron was really, really sad. All he was doing was siphoning money towards his own family. It's not like he was buying porn or having his moat cleaned, purchasing Hob Nobs or getting mock Tudor beams fitted. He should be reinstated.

Derek, if you read this, I think you were hard done by.
It is just me, isn't it.

Articles of Lapsed Faith

http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/
The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
I fear that we are moving away from this on a daily basis and I will, I know, devote more than one entry to this.
Article 7: All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law.
This doesn't apply to MPs (obviously!) who are miles above the laws that you and I have to obey. Where I would be looking at a lengthy prison term, they are able to write their sins off as poor accountancy skills. Great.
Article 20: Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
This is simply not true in Britain today. We have no right to assemble peacefully. We have a Police force that infiltrates demonstrations with its own agitators and then uses "kettling" to ensure that the demonstration is anything but peaceful. That same Police force turn up looking like the extras from Star Wars and batter the crap out of demonstrators who were - until their arrival - quite peaceful in intent and action.
Anon.

Melting the Crystal Ball

Scientists (and I use the term loosely) are very worried that the Arctic Sea will probably be free of ice (during summer) within 20 years. This is much faster than they have hitherto predicted.
Let's just run that again.
Scientists are predicting that, in 20 years, the ice in the Arctic will be gone after having recently predicted that it will not be gone.
All this tells us is that their predictions are utterly worthless.
Climatologists are basically long-range weather forecasters. As you know, I wouldn't trust a meteorologist to get yesterday's weather right, never mind tomorrow's. So how in God's name, with all the uncertainties in the system do they honestly expect us to even twitch an eyelid when they predict one thing and then come back - with no more real information or insight - with the "no, it will be much worse" argument. Which prediction is right? First or second? We'll find out in 20 years.
Personally, I trust Nostradamus more than this lot and he doesn't mention ice caps melting.

Animal Farm

As a teenager I read Orwell's "Animal Farm" in one sitting one day. Easily done. I was quite happy with the tale as it stood or with the parallels drawn between the farm and the USSR. Jolly good read. I've just read it again, only this time with our beloved PM cast as Napoleon and the other members of the Puritan Kakistocracy cast in other pig-like roles. It works just as well. Sadly. When Blair (Orwell's real name, incidentally) took over from the famously corrupt Tories in 1997 we all looked towards the brightening skies of our collective future. Twelve increasingly corrupt years later we are in a frighteningly worse position. Pigs with noses in the trough. Begone! The lot of you!

Stephen Fry, a chap I admire enormously, was on the Beeb today claiming that all this expenses stuff was completely unimportant and we should let it drop. For once, he is talking total bollocks. The actions of virtually all our MPs have disgraced our democratic system. While the rest of us tighten our belts yet again, watch our savings wither away, see our pensions collapse, and watch the decay of our schools, roads, hospitals and much more besides, our "honourable members" are pigging themselves.
Stephen: it is important; dont be a prat.

Middlesbrough

My spelling mistake of a home town is just about to drop out of the Premier League. Being on the wrong end of a 3-1 scoreline at St James' Park last night just about did it. Having supported Boro (usually from afar) all my life, it does hurt to see them drop into the Championship but the fight to avoid relegation has been fascinating this year. It still isn't decided. Even Tony Mowbray (one of Boro's favourite sons) is still defiant with his WBA team on the brink. Newcastle aren't safe yet. Hull may scramble clear. Much more interesting than the top of the table where the "big four" are in their usual places and it is obvious again that Man Utd are home and dry.
What I like about the "wrong end" of the table is that the games mean something. There is still something to play for rather than just the money. Proper football.

Guilty-ish: The New Innocent

So here's the scenario. I do absolutely nothing wrong, but I get wrongly arrested for something. I get DNA tested. Then I am released. Can I now get on with my life as normal? No. My DNA data will be stored for 6 years (minimum).

So - let's get this right - being completely innocent gets your data stored alongside the bad guys and, subsequently, the Police have access to information about you that they have absolutely no right to have. In effect, we have had an alternative to innocent rammed down our throats. We are now, all of us, either guilty or potentially guilty. I am not sure that there is a word for "guilty-ish" but there needs to be. It is the new innocent.

The first sniff of "guilty-ish" came with re-trials. Once upon a time you were - at your one and only trial - declared innocent or guilty. Being guilty meant that your guilt was proven beyond reasonable doubt. Juries who now "can not reach a verdict" trigger a re-trial. Surely "can not reach a verdict" is exactly the same as "not proven beyond reasonable doubt"; viz. "innocent".

We are sleepwalking into a fascist state. Indefinite detention. Show trials. Political trials.

Coming soon to a Britain near you.

On Offer

If David Cameron or Nick Clegg are looking for someone to stand as an MP for the next election, tell them I'm interested. I don't know what contacts you people have out there but since all of us on the planet are connected via three people (i.e. your friend of a friend of a friend knows every person on earth), I'm sure you can get the message back.
I'm sure I could do a good job although I have none of the qualities we have come to demand from our Honourable Members.
I am, for example, honest.

On My Planet

MPs' expenses; you couldn't make it up.
I have to say, I would love simply to collect all my receipts for the week and drop them into the Fees Office to be reimbursed but it just doesn't happen like that in my world. The way it works on my planet is that I work (just one job incidentally) for an employer who pays for this work with something called a salary. From this salary I lose income tax, national insurance (another tax) and a chunk of money for a pension (because the government has so mis-managed things that my generation will all need private pensions). When I go out to buy things I sometimes pay a lot more tax (e.g. petrol, gin) or just more tax (e.g. 15% VAT). Either way, in any one year, I have to work from January 1st to mid-July to pay my taxes. From then on, the money is mine.
This money, ripped from my salary, my hand and my pocket, goes to fund spurious second homes, hubby's porn, most of what John Lewis sells in a year and a million sundry items that should actually be bought from MPs' salaries. And they wonder why we are disenchanted with politics.
I feel like a Dalek at the foot of a flight of stairs; murderous and frustrated.

Help! Is there a biochemist in the house?

After years and years of thinking I did, it turns out that I don't understand DNA. The bases in DNA come in pairs, A with T, C with G. So on one helix you might have AAGCGCTTAGC and this would be matched by TTCGCAATCG. Fine. Happy with that.
Then, I'm told, the DNA is used to make RNA. OK. Which helix? If I use my AAGCGCTTAGC bit I will get a totally different RNA to my TTCGCAATCG bit. I'm also a bit worried because making RNA looks like the DNA has to uncoil. I've tried doing this on models. It doesn't work. You try it with two pieces of wire braided together. It knots up.
Then there's mitochondrial DNA. This is in a circle. No chance of unwinding there. So how does it make RNA? Does it make RNA? How does it make enzymes?
If there are any biochemists out there reading this, I would appreciate an hour of your time. Coffee would be involved.
And perhaps a cheese scone.

Pandemics (again)

So here we are again. Swine flu. Initially, I thought that this was just the past tense of "Pigs might fly" but it appears to be MUCH more serious. This M1N1 virus is like ordinary flu but much, much...well...less potent. You feel crap for a day or two and then you feel OK. You might get a bit of diarrhoea (or "dire rear") as well.
I am so impressed that Max Clifford was brought in to do the PR for the first people to catch it. As soon as I heard about it I was looking for Mexicans to socialise with in a snot-sharing way but no luck.
Don't get me wrong, I'm really sorry if this "pandemic" has caused the deaths of 19 people across the world; I'm really impressed that we can mobilise millions of tons of drugs when threatened; I'm in awe of the speedy identification and analysis offered by the epidemiologists.
But - for God's sake - can we please stop crying "wolf" over these things.
And stop kissing pigs! All right?