Technorati Link

You can all ignore this post unless you are a technorati genius. I am trying to figure out why my pathetic little msn blog which I stopped using months ago has a higher rating than this one. The explanation seems to be that technorati thinks it has 1 blog linking to it (this one?) I seem unable to reverse the process. Perhaps it is a limitation in msn. Obviously the point is important if you want to rise up the rankings. As a test I have placed the same link to my technorati blog claim as I used in the msn blog to see if that is the source of the link.

Pierre

A British Icon

This blog officially supports The Shipping Forcast as a British icon (See link in Title). I was amazed to find that it has not yet been nominated and so I have nominated it myself. Obviously it will not be number one but, nevertheless, many of us have it chiselled into our identities. I have spent years and years driving late at night and often been cheered along by "Sailing Home" and the Shipping Forcast. It has also been the prelude to some stunning contributions to the World Service from the BBC which follows the closing of Radio 4 after the Shipping Forcast. I remember once someone chose it as a Desert Island Disc also and I can understand why. To those of you outside our shores this must seem to be totally barmy British eccentricity but to those of us who were brought up on Latin, Empire, Shakespere, canings and cricket it is the essense of life itself.

I will not try to explain further. You either get it or you don't!

Pierre

Tags: British icon Shipping Forcast Sailing Home World Service BBC Radio 4 Desert Island Discs Latin Empire Shakespere canings cricket life

PS: What a shame they made the site specifically English which excludes many cultural items from Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. I hope my nomination, which clearly relates to the whole of the British Isles, is not, thereby, refused.

Trend of Things

Trying to make sense of the history of your own time whilst it is happening is well nigh impossible. However, with increasing age the past comes into focus. The dust settles. Alles klar, as the germans say.

I came across an interesting observation recently which was that in the 1920s there was a change from making what people need to persuading people that what machines make is what they need.

The more I think about it and the more profound it seems.

Pierre

Tags: history 1920s change need machines

New Kid on the Block

Congratulations to Olly Freeman on coming 3rd in the London Triathlon. This is the first time he has been old enough to compete at the under 23 level (he is just 20). A very creditable performance considering that he beat 2 Olympic winners! And such enthusiasm too. Did he have an MP3 player concealed about his person? I would swear he was chilling out as he ran.

Pierre

Tags: Olly Freeman London Triathlon enthusiasm

Ozone Layer Alive and Well

Click on the title to find a piece in Reuters which explains that the ozone layer is making a slow but definite recovery. A few years ago we were told that most of it had gone from above the Antarctic and that as a result all kinds of catastrophies were destined to follow. Chief of these was global warming but there was also increased risk of cancer from the unfiltered sun's rays and the eventual loss of the atmosphere altogether as the ozone layer played an important part in holding in the other layers of the atmosphere. As a result we had a worldwide ban on CFCs, the propellants in aerosols and some fridges of the day.

Well, I am delighted with the good news, of course, but even more confused about what is really going on. If the ozone layer is slowly repairing itself then why is global warming accelerating?

I suspect that the truth is that no one really knows what is causing global warming although this will not stop plently of people from writing about it. I have always been a sceptic, myself, of the idea that man is the chief architect of this phenomenon and that the cause is the practice of burning fossil fuels. I don't doubt that the world is getting warmer. That is the easy bit. We only have to measure it. Mind you, how long have we been capable of doing that. Not long.

Since everyone has a theory and no one really knows I have decided to offer my own theory. We are currently experiencing the greatest amount of sunspot activity ever known since such observations began. The amount of energy thrown out by sunspots is, pardon the pun, astronomical. Therefore, it is reasonable to suppose that the main cause of global warming is sunspot activity. This would also account for climatic variations in time past. The sun is reasonably well behaved but no one is perfect. Perhaps this sun is going through a bad ass phase (excuse the american phrase, most unlike me).

Food for thought or am I going senile?

Pierre

Tags: ozone layer reuters CFCs antarctic global warming atmosphere sunspots fossil fuels theory

Universal Inflation

That numbers guy is at it again. This one caught my eye. One thing that marks out our age is size or scale and the quote here sums it up rather nicely.

Pierre

Source: http://numericlife.blogspot.com/2006/08/economical-numbers.html

Tags: numbers astronomical inflation scale

We Are Closer Than You Think

The link on this blog takes you to a rather wonderful site. The guy there collects numeric information. It might sound boring at first but, in truth, much of our lives is controlled by numbers, as a recent TV programme has illustrated very well. Although the research in this blog is not new (2001) I presume in his eternal search for all things numeric he has only just got around to it.

The basic point is that even though thousands of people are involved in an enterprise they are related to each other at only 6 removes. This has been known since 1929 but the guy in 2001 used the internet to prove it, which of course makes it proven beyond all doubt.

Pierre

Source: http://numericlife.blogspot.com/2006/08/six-degree-of-separation.html

Tags: numbers research related

Is Everybody Happy?

Apparently some of us are more happy than others and the differences appear to be marked. The University of Leicester is about to publish the first ever world map/study of relative happiness. This is based on 80,000 interviews worldwide. The main indicators turn out to be health, wealth and education. Remember the old ditty:

Early to bed, early to rise,

Makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.

I have been unable to find an original source at the moment. Possibly someone jumped the gun and it is not yet out. The link at the start of this piece is to a blog that has details of the project. I will let you see for yourself where we all rank. Well worth a read.

Pierre

Source: http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=25774562&blogID=155300862

Tags: happy University of Leicester world health wealth education

A Bad Day for Spanners

I should know better. In spite of being an otherwise rational, if not anal, human being, I am highly superstitious. This is something I will, no doubt, write about at some length in due course, as one of the ways in which I justify my existence is to embark on that famous journey of searching for the meaning of life.

My present problem is that over the years I have found a very clear relationship between disaster and the date of the 13th of the month. This is not something I want to be true. It is something I have, dare I say it, scientifically observed to be true.

So this is not a good day to be tinkering with the web site. Several days ago I applied for the Reuters news player which you can only have on your site as a syndicated item. In other words you apply for it and they take a look at your site and say yes if its OK and no if you're pushing porn or terrorism. Since my site has neither of these I was accepted. Fitting it in then became a major problem, or, should I say, project.

These ready made blogger templates are brilliant for getting started and if you wonder why they look so good I can tell you. They are so good. The Player was just slightly too big to fit at the top of the page. The result was that all the stuff in the right hand column got shunted to the bottom. Now I have a nodding acquaintance with HTML from one of the many books I read up to Chapter Six (my favourite chapter, mainly because I rarely get as far as Chapter 7). However, nodding might get you by in German but teutonic precision pales in the face of HTML!! According to the book (Chapter Six) you can only advise browsers what they should do with your code. You cannot actually tell them where to stick it (although I came close a few times). As if in sympathy with the codies my last post decided to play the shunting trick on me all without provocation. So, if things look a bit odd around here just ignore it because it will all return to normal at midnight - it always does.

Pierre

Tags: rational superstitious existence meaning of life 13th reuters templates HTML

Change the World? Not Me Mate

I never thought the day would come. I have decided to drop the complaint against the hospital trust. Today is the last day for writing to the Ombudsman and with me that is not a simple letter. I know it will take up all of my day. I like to be thorough so I know I would have made a proper job of it.

The truth is I doubt if it would make any difference. A few years ago I had the dubious honour of writing an entire complaints procedure for a group of special schools which I was the director of. We then had to be inspected by both the Department of Education and Science (as it then was) and the local authority. We passed with flying colours I am happy to say As a result of becoming intimate with complaints procedures I took more than a passing interest in their implementation. My conclusion, (forgive me if, on this occasion, I omit the evidence which would be extensive), was that complaints procedures are administered by hard nosed spin doctors who know exactly how to manipulate the situation to their advantage. The member of the public who thinks he's got them trembling at the knees has not begun to make an impression on them. I should know because I was one of them! In fairness to my own performance I certainly did care about the issue and I would deal with it thoroughly. In that sense the complainant would get what they were after. However, I would probably not expose my own staff to the mercy of a savage member of the public - so they would never know! Funny old world, don't you think?

Pierre

Tags: complaint hospital Ombudsman special schools local authority public care spin doctors funny

Diary Note

Well I had hoped to be entering a prolific phase but - best laid plans...

Two weeks have gone by since I resumed posting for all of one day! Much has happened in this period. Initially, I simply got tired and dozed and dozed and dozed for hours and then days. Tiredness is a strange and irritating but somewhat surreal experience. You feel that you are not ill but in truth you are.

No sooner had I recovered than things got busy at work (I work from home). To cut a long story short I am currently going to various destinations in Wales 5 days a week. This requires me to get out of bed at 05:45 hours. Not good for a night person like me. The first day was tough but I was spurred on by the adrenalin burst. After that it got easier. However, I am not back until lunch time and then need a therapeutic afternoon nap so before I know it the day is gone. I thought time management was a thing of the past. How wrong can you be.

On top of that certain friends have taken to visiting most evenings (which I love) but the net result is not much time left for blogging. I do not like writing when there are others in the room. It's an atmosphere thing.

Anyway, I have spent a lot of time experimenting with the old blog. So, one way and another, there's gonna be some changes round here. Didn't I say that last time?

Pierre

Tags: diary tired writing atmosphere blogging changes